Impact of High Tibial Osteotomy in Preventing Degenerative Disease Progression in Medial Knee Osteoarthritis.

High tibial osteotomy (HTO) surgical procedure can lead to clinically significant improvements in the cartilage and in subchondral bone quality, with a slow down of the osteoarthritis (OA) progression. Aim of the project is to: (i) clinically validate a 3D planned HTO surgical approach, through a quantitative grading of OA progression in a prospective randomized case-control clinical trial; (ii) correlate the internal knee loads with the changes assessed in cartilage and subchondral bone status to verify the hypothesis that HTO induced mechanical changes are associated with clinically significant OA improvements; (iii) relate imaging data with cartilage and subchondral bone mechanical properties, in order to classify OA progression in a more sensitive manner and allow a more precise diagnosis of the pathology stage.