Analysis of Preoperative Screening Criteria for Total Joint Arthroplasty in a Veteran Population

This study describes the experience of patients who initially failed total joint arthroplasty preoperative screening criteria but were subsequently optimized and underwent surgery.

Time to optimization from the patients’ initial clinic visit was recorded. Following surgery, patients’ body mass index and lab work were tracked to determine whether they “relapsed” to their preoptimized state. Descriptive statistics determined (1) the length of time to meet screening criteria and (2) which screening criteria took the longest to optimize.

Only 11 of 84 patients (13%) required greater than 1 year to meet criteria. Most patients (76%) “relapsed” to their previous nonqualifying status after surgery; however, this reversion did not contribute significantly to an increased rate of complication in short-term follow-up ( P = .4298).

Patients in this study were able to achieve preoperative screening criteria for total joint arthroplasty in less than 1 year. Relapsing after surgery does not appear to adversely affect clinical outcomes.