Complications of Distal Femoral Replacement

Historically, distal femoral arthroplasty was a procedure reserved for salvage oncologic procedures or revision arthroplasty with severe bone loss. More recently, there has been an increase in utilization of distal femoral arthroplasty for patients with native and periprosthetic distal femur fractures. With increased utilization comes an increased incidence of the wide array of complications associated with this procedure, such as prosthetic joint infection, aseptic loosening, patellar instability, extensor mechanism disruption, and periprosthetic fractures. We present the literature on these complications and current management recommendations.