Tibial Slope is Highly Variable in Patients Undergoing Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty: Analysis of 13,546 Computed Tomography Scans

The purpose of this study was to retrospectively measure with computed tomography (CT) the posterior tibial slope (PTS) to establish the average anatomy and the incidence of outliers in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Our cohort included 13,546 arthritic patients: 8241 (61%) female; 5305 (39%) male. The average PTS angle was 7.2° ± 3.7° (range, − 5° to 25°). The average of PTS angle of the males was 7.17° ± 3.82° and females was 7.24° ± 3.57°. A significant number of patients 35.0% (4149) were identified outliers in PTS. 1568 (11.6%) patients’ PTS angle was less than 4°, 2581 (19.1%) patients’ PTS angle was more than 10°. These data can be useful to determine optimum techniques and methodology to perform more accurate TKA.