Quality of Outcomes Research in Total Ankle Arthroplasty

The study of outcomes in TAA is a topic that has gained increasing interest recently, and this update demonstrates a continuation in the trend in a steady increase. Most of the publications on TAA involve retrospective study with short- to mid-term follow-up. In addition, the patient -reported outcomes measurement tools used vary in the literature, though the most commonly used tool is the nonvalidated AOFAS score. Although outcomes research on ankle replacement certainly does have its pitfalls, the results of the current literature are nonetheless useful to those who perform TAA as they provide early recognition of adverse events and poorly performing implants. These studies also provide direction on where future research efforts should focus in order. Of note, long-term outcomes studies would further improve the overall quality of the research as a whole, as would adoption of a more standardized, validated PROM tool. Last, no surgeon database of TAA exists to the authors' knowledge. Having a standardized database for reporting outcomes data would be beneficial as the incidence of TAA, while growing consistently over the past 2 decades, is still relatively small, which leads to difficulty in properly powering well -designed studies.