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Abstract
Several surgical procedures are used to repair CCL injuries successfully, but some animals have osteoarthritis that progresses despite surgery and these joints become painful and are dysfunctional. In this particular subset of cases, where all medical and surgical treatments have failed, TKR is used to restore the comfort and function of the stifle, but implant failure has been reported clinically. The studies herein used canine hemi-pelves hindlimbs collected from mixed breed dogs to test the three-dimensional kinematics of the stifle before and after TKR and soft tissue removal. This experimental procedure utilized an OKR apparatus that applied a dynamic force to each stifle, tested in 90 to 180 degrees of flexion, while preserving the natural coxofemoral and hock joints. The objective was to identify the specific positional changes of anatomical components within the stifle joint that could cause abnormal ranges of motion in canines leading to TKR implant failure.