Survivorship of revised and multiply revised knee replacements

Total knee replacements are highly successful procedures, resulting in the exponential growth in numbers of these procedures done over the past few decades.

Although literature has indicated that 80% of total knee replacements can last for more than 20 years, there is still a cohort of patients that eventually require revision surgery.

The most common reasons for revision surgery include aseptic loosening, osteolysis, infection, and trauma.

Although advances in surgical management and technology have helped to greatly reduce post-operative complications,

patients who undergo revision knee replacements are at potentially greater risk for decreased implant survivorship and further subsequent revision procedures than patients undergoing first knee replacement surgeries.

In The Lancet Rheumatology, Kevin Deere and colleagues

report a registry-based analysis of revised and multiply revised total knee replacement surgeries to understand how long they last.