Combined knee osteotomy and cartilage procedure for varus knees: friend or foe? A narrative review of the literature

Abstract

Varus knees with associated cartilage pathologies are not uncommon scenarios that present to orthopaedic surgeons. There is no agreement on the ideal management of varus knees with concomitant cartilage pathology. Through a literature review, the authors tried to answer three main questions: On October 2022, OVID MEDLINE, EMBASE, and COCHRANE databases were searched. Clinical studies reporting on clinical, radiologic, or macroscopic cartilage regeneration following either isolated knee osteotomy or concomitant osteotomy and a cartilage procedure were reviewed. Despite controversies, the literature demonstrated favourable outcomes of combined knee osteotomy and a cartilage procedure in patients with substantial deformity and cartilage defects. Isolated high tibial osteotomy may induce cartilage regeneration in several scenarios and severities of concomitant malalignment and cartilage defects. There are recommendations that knee osteotomy should be added to a cartilage procedure when an extra-articular deformity of > 5° is detected. Some studies report good outcomes for combining a knee osteotomy with cartilage grafting, but they lack a control group of isolated osteotomy. There is still scarce of evidence on the influence of osteotomies on cartilage regeneration and the outcomes of concomitant osteotomy and different cartilage procedures vs isolated osteotomies. With advanced statistical evaluation (artificial intelligence, machine learning) of big datasets, more answers and better results will be delivered.