Stem Design for Tibial Component of Knee Prosthesis

Knee arthroplasty is one of the most successful operations in joint replacement but it is not free of failures. Mechanical loosening of the tibial component is one of the major causes of knee prosthesis failure. Optimizing the tibial stem can help not only provide better stability but also better anchorage and less loosening. Stems with different physical characteristics exist in the market to help improve these problems. In this work, a methodology for the proposal of a tibial stem was developed and compared with the experimental data of a commercial one. Different models of stems with modifications in their geometry were proposed, and results of stresses and deformations in the cortical and trabecular bone were obtained through finite element analysis. In the deformations of the proposed stem, the results were below the experimental data and within the normal physiological range. And in the stresses, the magnitude of the final model was up to 6 times lower than the commercial model.