Bilateral total knee arthroplasty. One cruciate retaining and one cruciate substituting.

Thirty bilateral-paired cruciate-retaining and cruciate-substituting total knee arthroplasties (TKAs) were evaluated two to five years after surgery. In general, the more deformed knees received the cruciate-substituting prosthesis. Preoperative Hospital for Special Surgery knee scores averaged 56.4 (range, 44-68) in the cruciate-retaining knees and 53.3 (range, 29-69) in the cruciate-substituting knees. Postoperatively, 25 patients were observed climbing stairs. All patients were scored and asked their preference of knees. Fifteen patients handled stairs normally. Five patients climbed stairs favoring the cruciate-substituting knee and four the cruciate-retaining knee. One patient favored one knee ascending and the other descending. In the cruciate-substituting knees, there were 27 excellent and three good knee scores. There were 28 excellent and two good knee scores in the cruciate-retaining knees. Ten patients preferred the cruciate-retaining knee, eight preferred the cruciate-substituting knee, and 12 had no preference. In this group of patients no clinical advantage of one type of TKA over the other was observed.