CHICAGO — Posterior-stabilized (PS) bearings used in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) may increase the risk of revision compared with bearings of other design, new data suggest.
That possiblity has previously been reported in studies outside the United States, and now an analysis of more than 300,000 cases in the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) suggests it's the case in the US as well.
Dr Ryland Kagan
Principal investigator Ryland Kagan, MD, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in Portland, told Medscape Medical News, "What's unique about our experience in the US is our overall high use of PS implants."
More than half of TKAs in the US use the PS bearings; in comparison, in Australia and European countries, PS use is closer to 20%, he said. Because of this disparity, previous studies have not been seen as generalizable to the US, he said.
Researchers used AJRR data from 2012–2019 and identified all primary TKA procedures performed during that period. Cases were linked to supplemental Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data to find revision procedures that may not have been included in the AJRR database.
Jamil Kendall, MD, an orthopedic resident at OHSU, was first author on the study.
