Kinematic versus mechanical alignment for primary total knee arthroplasty with minimum 2 years follow-up: a systematic review

Purpose: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the literature to determine whether there are any clinical or radiological differences in mechanically aligned Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) compared with kinematically aligned TKA. Methods: This study included retrospective cohort studies, prospective randomized controlled trials (PRCTs) and prospective cohort studies comparing clinical and radiological outcomes, and complications in TKA with kinematic alignment (KA) and mechanical alignment (MA). All studies had a minimum follow-up of 2 years. Results: Five PRCTs published between 2014 and 2020 were included. These studies showed a low risk of bias and were of very high quality. We did not find a superiority of KA compared to MA technique for clinical and radiological outcomes, except in one study which showed a significant difference favoring KA between the two groups for all clinical scores. Conclusion: We found that KA in TKA achieved clinical and radiological results similar to those of MA. The complication rate was not increased for KA TKAs. Studies with longer follow-up and larger cohorts are required to prove any benefit of KA technique over MA technique.