COMPLICATIONS AND FOLLOW UP FOLLOWING A TOTAL KNEE REPLACEMENT; A REVIEW OF RECENT LITERATURE

Introduction: Total knee surgical replacement is considered to be an extremely cost-effective surgery in the field of orthopedics. It is estimated that over four million patients in the United States have undergone a total knee replacement, and more than half a million patients undergo this operation annually.

Aim of work: In this review, we will discuss the risks of possible complications, methods for their prevention, and ideal follow up for patients who underwent total knee replacement surgery.

Methodology: We did a systematic search for prostatitis using PubMed search engine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and Google Scholar search engine (https://scholar.google.com). The terms used in the search were: total knee replacement, knee arthroplasty, complications, management and follow up.

Conclusions: Despite having an overall favorable safety profile, total knee replacement therapy can have associated morbidities. Overall mortality following a total knee replacement therapy is extremely low and is about 0.08%. Possible complications include cardiovascular events like arrhythmias, heart failure, myocardial infarction, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms, and fat embolisms. Other more common complications are prosthetic infection, which is the most common early complication, and aseptic loosening, which is the most common late complications.

Keywords: knee replacement, surgical complications, orthopedic, knee arthroplasty