Objective: The prevalence of symptomatic ankle osteoarthritis increases with age; thus, affected individuals potentially have osteoporosis and talar fragility. Therefore, while performing osteosynthesis between the tibial plafond and the talar trochlea during arthroscopic ankle arthrodesis, increased stability and compression pressure during fixation are needed. Screw threads must be anchored within the talus; however, the bone mineral density of the talus has not been reported. We aimed to determine if the bone mineral density of the talus is lower in patients with ankle osteoarthritis than in healthy individuals, in addition to which part has the highest bone mineral density.
Materials and methods: We studied the talus of 10 feet without and 10 with end-stage ankle osteoarthritis. Each talar cancellous bone was divided into the lateral process, head and neck, middle body, and medial body. Computed tomographic of each segment was measured to calculate the relative bone mineral density difference between the regions.
Result: The mean computed tomographic values were 638.329 ± 139.765 standard deviation (SD), 465.960 ± 74.254 SD, 537.109 ± 82.443 SD, and 469.016 ± 84.490 SD of the healthy talus group and were 360.994 ± 117.403 SD, 284.397 ± 101.142 SD, 327.814 ± 114.772 SD, and 297.524 ± 105.667 SD in the end-stage ankle osteoarthritis talus group for the five respective segments above.
Conclusions: The bone mineral density values were significantly lower in the end-stage ankle osteoarthritis talus than in the healthy talus. The bone mineral relative density was highest from the body middle to the lateral process.