Total knee replacement for tricompartmental arthritis in a patient with a below-knee amputation after a previous closing wedge high tibial osteotomy

This is a report of a 64-year-old man who had undergone a high tibial osteotomy (HTO) 17 years ago of his right knee for medial compartment osteoarthritis; 5 days later, he received a below-knee amputation owing to a missed popliteal artery injury at the time of the HTO. We elected to perform a total knee replacement (TKR) for progressive arthritis of the ipsilateral knee 17 years after the transtibial amputation. Although there is a plethora of literature regarding TKR in the contralateral knee of amputees, there is a paucity of data of TKR in the ipsilateral knee. Using medical search engines including Google Scholar and PubMed, we were only able to identify 4 case reports of TKR in the ipsilateral knee of below-knee amputees. This is the first description in the English literature that has the following rare pathology list: tricompartmental arthritis with a previous closing wedge HTO with a resultant truncated valgus tibia and short transtibial amputation.