Knee Arthroscopy After Total Knee Arthroplasty: Not a Benign Procedure

Outcomes of knee arthroscopy (KA) after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) have been limited to small case series with short-term follow-up. The purpose of this study is to report the outcomes of patients who undergo a KA after a TKA using a large longitudinal database.

The PearlDiver Medicare database was queried for patients who underwent a KA procedure after a TKA on the ipsilateral extremity. A randomly selected control group was created by matching controls to cases in a 3:1 ratio based on age, gender, year of procedure, and Elixhauser Comorbidity Index. Revision for infection and all-cause revision were used as end points.

A total of192 TKA patients who underwent a subsequent KA (TKA + KA group) were compared to 571 TKA patients who did not have a subsequent KA (TKA − KA group). The incidence of revision for infection was 6.3% in the TKA + KA group compared to 2.2% in the TKA − KA group (odds ratio, 2.87; P = .009). The incidence of all-cause revision was 18.8% in the TKA + KA group compared to 5.1% in the TKA − KA group (odds ratio, 4.34; P < .001).

KA after TKA was associated with increased infection-related and all-cause revision. The association between KA and subsequent infection requires further investigation.