High tibial osteotomy reduces compressive loads in the knee medial compartment and increases them in the lateral one during walking

High tibial osteotomy (HTO) is a well-accepted surgical procedure for patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) and varus alignment aimed at realigning the tibia to reduce the load on the medial compartment of the knee. This study analyzed ambulatory knee loads – specifically the knee adduction moment and compressive forces – in patients before and 9 months after HTO by means of musculoskeletal modelling. HTO effectively reduces the knee adduction moment and unloads the medial knee compartment while increasing the compressive load on the lateral one. Musculoskeletal modelling contributes to the understanding of changes in knee compartmental loads due to load-altering interventions in patients with knee OA that goes beyond evidence gained from 3-dimensional motion capture and force data and inverse dynamics approache