A Comparison of the Noise Generated from Different Types of Knee Prostheses

After total knee arthroplasty (TKA), patients may experience noise from their replaced knee. A prospective study was conducted with 465 (930 knees) patients to evaluate noise after bilateral TKA. A different randomly selected prosthesis was used on each side. The prostheses used were medial pivot (MP), anterior and posterior cruciate ligament retaining (ACL-PCL), posterior cruciate ligament retaining (PCL), posterior cruciate-substituting (PS), or mobile bearing (MB). The evaluation included the patients' responses to questions about noise after both their TKAs. Noise-related symptoms were reported by 12% of the patients with MP prostheses, 4% of patients with ACL-PCL, 31% of patients with PCL, 33% of patients with PS, and 42% of patients with MB. Occasionally, patients were concerned or dissatisfied with this phenomenon. Noise was less common with TKAs that used MP and ACL-PCL knee prostheses than with TKAs that used other prostheses.