Lateral vs. Medial Parapatellar Approach Efficacy in Total Knee Arthroplasty

Introduction: Total knee arthroplasties are the mainstay of treatment in patients with osteoarthritis and can be completed in a lateral parapatellar surgical approach or a medial parapatellar surgical approach. The purpose of this review is to compare if the lateral parapatellar approach has superior clinical outcomes to the medial parapatellar approach. Methods: PubMed was searched using MeSH terms and Boolean operators “lateral” AND “medial” AND “knee replacement” AND “outcomes”. Filters were applied to narrow the results to four articles directly related to the comparison of clinical outcomes. Four articles were selected for clinical review. Results: In all articles reviewed it was concluded that there was not a statistically significant difference between the lateral or medial surgical approach to a total knee arthroplasty. One metanalysis found that the lateral parapatellar surgical approach had a higher survivability rate in short term follow up compared to the medial parapatellar surgical approach. Two articles found that the postoperative knee society score was higher in patients who underwent the lateral parapatellar surgical approach. Discussion: The articles reviewed provided evidence that both surgical approaches had positive clinical outcomes when directly compared. Comparable functional outcomes are shown throughout the reviewed articles for both surgical approaches. 3 Lateral vs. medial parapatellar approach efficacy in total knee arthroplasty