Primary knee joint arthroplasty trends at the Vreden National Medical Research Centre for Traumatology and Orthopedics compared with other national joint replacement registries. Is our way similar?

Introduction Total joint replacement is one of the most effective and successful surgical interventions. Regular monitoring of these surgical interventions is essential and may serve as a system for early detection of defective prosthesis designs or techniques resulting in the complication rate which exceeds the estimated level. The ideal way to conduct this monitoring is a registry of joint replacements. Purpose Assessment of the structure of primary knee joint arthroplasty at the Federal State Budgetary Institution Vreden National Medical Research Centre for Traumatology and Orthopaedics named and it’s comparative analysis with the data from leading foreign registers to improve the work of orthopaedic surgeons, traumatologists and healthcare organizers by optimizing the surgical tactics in the specialized treatment of patients. Methods The authors reviewed the annual reports published by national registers of knee replacements and compared them with the data of the registry of the Vreden National Medical Research Centre for Traumatology and Orthopaedics to make conclusions that would be relevant to current orthopaedic practice. Results Several results of the survey demonstrate the most significant or unexpected conclusions as according to the registry. These include an extremely large gender imbalance and obesity as two thirds of the patients were overweight. The number of patients with tumors and rheumatological diseases in the structure of knee replacements decreased considerably in the recent years. Designs and types of implants used, patellar resurfacing in arthroplasty, time of surgical intervention and options for postoperative administrations of antibiotics at the Vreden Centre are consistent with general European trends in knee arthroplasty. Conclusions The number of primary knee replacements (including unicompartment replacements) has been increasing annually. The patients admitted for primary knee replacement are statistically very similar to patient population from other countries. The main differences are associated with an earlier age at which arthroplasty is performed, an extreme gender imbalance and a relatively low number of patellar resurfacing in primary knee replacement. The problem of overweight among the population leads to an increased number of knee replacements, complications and lower implant survival rate.