Copyright
©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Feb 18, 2026; 17(2): 113696
Published online Feb 18, 2026. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v17.i2.113696
Published online Feb 18, 2026. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v17.i2.113696
Does surgeon handedness affect the outcomes after primary total knee arthroplasty? A retrospective cohort study
Ahmed A Khalifa, Department of Orthopaedic, Qena Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, South Valley University, Qena 83523, Qina, Egypt
Ahmed M Abdelaal, Mohamed MA Moustafa, Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Trau
Author contributions: Khalifa AA carried out the study conception and design; Khalifa AA and Moustafa MMA performed the measurements, data acquisition, assessment, literature search, and preparation of the images and tables; Khalifa AA carried out the statistical analysis; Khalifa AA, Abdelaal AM, and Moustafa MMA drafted the manuscript; Abdelaal AM and Khalifa AA performed critical revisions. All authors read, discussed, and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, No. 04-2025-300657.
Informed consent statement: This study was conducted retrospectively using anonymized radiographic and clinical data. No patient-identifiable information was collected or reported, and no direct patient contact occurred. Therefore, the requirement for informed consent was waived in accordance with the ethical standards of our institutional review board (No. 04-2025-300657) and the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments, as well as the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest concerning this manuscript.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: All data are included within the manuscript; however, the raw data could be provided upon reasonable written request to the corresponding author.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ahmed A Khalifa, MD, Assistant Professor, FRCS, Department of Orthopaedic, Qena Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, South Valley University, Kilo 6 Qena-Safaga Highway, Qena 83523, Qina, Egypt. ahmed_adel0391@med.svu.edu.eg
Received: September 1, 2025
Revised: October 2, 2025
Accepted: December 10, 2025
Published online: February 18, 2026
Processing time: 156 Days and 14.1 Hours
Revised: October 2, 2025
Accepted: December 10, 2025
Published online: February 18, 2026
Processing time: 156 Days and 14.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Factors affecting primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) outcomes could be related to the patient, surgical technique, and the surgeon. One rarely investigated surgeon-related factor is surgeon handedness. We evaluated 370 knees operated by right-handed surgeons, where 177 TKAs were right (dominant side) and 193 were left (non-dominant side). We found no difference between sides regarding the overall limb and individual component coronal plane alignment; furthermore, there was no difference in the functional outcomes between sides, but there were fewer tibial component outliers in the dominant side. Surgeons operating on the non-dominant side should pay attention during the tibial cut and implant insertion.