A large metallic cyst caused by wear particles after total knee arthroplasty.

Niimi R, Hasegawa M, Sudo A, Uchida A.

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu City, Mie 514-8507, Japan.

INTRODUCTION: A symptomatic cyst is an uncommon complication after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We present a case of a 77-year-old woman with a large cyst in the right knee caused by metal wear debris from the failure of a Miller-Galante I TKA performed 13 years earlier. CASE PRESENTATION: The patient was treated with a two-stage operation including revision of the TKA followed by excision of the cyst, because there was a direct communication between the joint cavity and the cyst, and because the patient reported pain corresponding to the cystic area after revision. The patient was pain-free and had a satisfactory result 17 months after the second operation, without recurrence of cyst formation. CONCLUSION: We recommend two-stage surgery in which the first-stage is correction of the intra-articular pathology with revision TKA and the second-stage is excision of the cyst.

PMID: 16927094 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]