In the December 16, 2015 edition of The Journal, Pellegrini et al. present the results from a cohort of 23 patients who had initially undergone ankle arthrodesis and then, due to decreasing function and increasing mid- and hindfoot pain, sought relief via conversion to an ankle arthroplasty. The good news is that this conversion provided meaningful clinical improvement in pain and function, with 87% survival of the implants over the mean 33-month follow-up.
One technical detail the authors recommend is prophylactic fixation of the malleoli as a concomitant procedure, noting that local osteopenia related to arthrodesis make malleoli prone to fracture during insertion of the tibial component.
