What is minimally invasive total knee replacement surgery?
There are many definitions of minimally invasive knee surgery including a skin incision under 14 cm (ranging between 6 and 14 cm), and minimization of soft-tissue dissection (including quadriceps sparing). 37. What are different surgical approaches to the knee? The conventional medial parapatellar arthrotomy splits and detaches a portion of the quadriceps tendon from the patella. The midvastus approach involves detaching the vastus medialis fibers that are attached distal to the patella and then splitting the muscle parallel with these fibers from the superior pole of the patella down to their origin on the femur. The subvastus approach (unlike the medial parapatellar approach) preserves the extensor mechanism and its vascularity. This approach is performed by dissecting around the inner thigh muscle through a natural plane, instead of directly cutting through muscle and tendon (quadriceps) as in traditional approaches. A new lateral approach for total knee arthroplasty has been recent
