The gap balanced total knee arthroplasty

The goals of knee arthroplasty (TKA) are to restore a neutral mechanical axis to the leg, and to create symmetric collateral ligament tension throughout the arc of knee motion. What technique best achieves this remains controversial. The two most commonly used techniques for performing TKA are measured resection and gap balancing. Measured resection relies on identification of bony landmarks to set the rotation of the femoral component. The gap balancing technique sets the rotation of the femoral component parallel to the cut tibial surface with symmetric tension on the collateral ligaments.