Knee Replacement a Good Option, Even for Severely Obese: Study

News Picture: Knee Replacement a Good Option, Even for Severely Obese: Study

WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021 (HealthDay News)

Overall knee substitute is a value-powerful treatment for exceptionally obese people today with knee osteoarthritis, a new examine promises.

The unpleasant problem has an effect on more than 14 million U.S. adults, and complete knee substitute is normally proposed to treat sophisticated knee osteoarthritis.

Nonetheless, considerations about increased challenges of weak wound therapeutic, an infection and implant failure make some surgeons unwilling to carry out the treatment on exceptionally obese people today.

“Large BMI should really not serve as a barrier for people today seeking this treatment,” stated examine creator Elena Losina, a founding director of the Plan and Innovation Analysis in Orthopedic Treatments Center and a co-director of the Orthopedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Brigham and Women’s Clinic in Boston.

For the examine, Losina and her colleagues employed a computer simulation to assess the pros and downsides of complete knee substitute in exceptionally obese people today.

When they calculated pounds spent for high quality-adjusted lifetime yr acquired, the results showed that in the two age groups — more youthful and older than 65 — complete knee substitute is a value-powerful treatment.

The examine was revealed March 23 in the Annals of Inner Medication.

Most exceptionally obese individuals with sophisticated knee osteoarthritis who contemplate complete knee substitute are in the more youthful age range, and these results may well assist simplicity considerations pertaining to the benefit of this operation in these individuals, the researchers proposed.

“People with excessive weight problems practical experience sizeable discomfort reduction from [complete knee substitute], primary to meaningful enhancements in high quality-adjusted lifetime expectancy,” Losina stated in a healthcare facility information release.

“From a overall health policy standpoint, this operation delivers a extremely superior benefit for the pounds spent,” she stated.

“In its place of questioning whether or not or not to do operation for people today with excessive weight problems, the conversation should really be about how to accommodate these individuals and deliver correct info about what to hope article-operation,” Losina stated.

“Eventually, this examine raises the dilemma of how to do the operation in a way that addresses all of the worries that may well occur,” she mentioned. “This is a discussion that should really get put amongst specific individuals and physicians, speaking about all the challenges, troubles, and rewards, as nicely as criteria of working room accommodations that would enhance the work of orthopedic surgeons doing [complete knee replacements] in these individuals.”

Extra info

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has more on complete knee substitute.

Source: Brigham and Women’s Clinic, information release, March 22, 2021

Robert Preidt