What is the difference between minimally invasive knee replacement and traditional knee replacement?
In traditional knee replacement, an approximately 10 to 12 inch skin incision is made centered over the knee. This is followed by making an incision into the quadriceps tendon above the knee, down the side of the kneecap and two inches below the joint and then the kneecap is flipped 180 degrees and off to the side (everted). The knee is then bent up to expose the bones of the knee for resurfacing with the knee prosthesis. In the Mini-Incision and Quad Sparing incision total knee replacements, the incision is 4-6 inches. The quadriceps tendon is not cut, nor is the kneecap flipped backwards. In the mini-incision total knee replacement (the larger of the two MIS total knee techniques), a small incision of about 1 inch is made into the muscle fibers of the vastus medialis muscle–one of the four quadriceps muscles, leaving the quadriceps tendon intact. The quad sparing total knee replacement leaves all of the quadriceps muscles intact including the vastus medialis. Both techniques result
