Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty over total knee arthroplasty: a more cost-effective strategy for treating medial compartment arthritis

Worldwide, the demand for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is projected to increase largely due to an aging population, an increase in the prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA), and the overwhelming success of arthroplasty (1,2). In the United States, the prevalence of TKA was 0.80% in 2000 and nearly doubled to 1.52% a decade later, corresponding to 4,700,621 people living with TKAs in 2010 (2). Furthermore, with the remarkable success of TKAs and the increasing incidence of OA in younger patients, the number of young patients that may require surgical management for their arthritis is increasing, further contributing to the overall projected increase in arthroplasty volumes (3-6).