Comparing cruciate-retaining total knee arthroplasty and cruciate-substituting total knee arthroplasty: a prospective clinical study.

BACKGROUND This prospective clinical study was performed to compare the clinical outcomes and radiographic changes between patients with cruciate-retaining (CR) and cruciate-substituting (CS) total knee arthroplasty (TKA). METHODS From 1997 through 1998, 228 patients (183 females and 45 males) with a total of 267 knees with an average age of 55 years (range, 20 to 83 years) were enrolled in this study. Patients were randomly divided into two groups including group I of 137 patients underwent 157 CR TKA, and group II of 91 patients underwent 110 CS total knee arthroplasties. The evaluation parameters included knee scores, functional scores, radiographs of the knees and SF-12 surveys. The average follow-up period was 42 months (range, 24 to 66 months). RESULTS The overall results for group I were 74.3% excellent, 17.7% good, 7.1% fair and 0.9% poor for; and 76.9% excellent, 19.2% good and 3.8% fair for group II. No significant differences were noted in the overall results between the two groups. The radiographic changes showed no discernable differences. CONCLUSIONS Cruciate-retaining and cruciate-substituting total knee arthroplasties function equally well at 2 to 5 years postoperatively. The ultimate differences between the patients who underwent CR TKA and CS TKA need to be examined after long-term follow up.