RESEARCH ARTICLE
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Revision of Unicondylar to Total Knee Arthoplasty: A Systematic Review
Christof Pabinger*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2014Volume: 8
First Page: 474
Last Page: 474
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-8-474
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001408010474
Article History:
Received Date: 24/4/2014Revision Received Date: 2/10/2014
Acceptance Date: 8/11/2014
Electronic publication date: 29 /12/2014
Collection year: 2014

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
DEAR PROF. HERNIGOU,
To assess revision rates after knee arthroplasty we compared cumulative results from world wide clinical studies and arthroplasty registers from the 1960 up to now in one of the largest reviews ever [1]. We found, the overall revision rate at ten years was 6% for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and17%for unicondylar protheses (UKA). Literature from non-register studies are biased regarding UKA [2]. After the first revision, the five year revision rate was 3% for TKR and 9% for UKR [3]. Therefore, it can be calculated that revision rate after 15 years for TKA is 9% (6% + 3%) and rate for UKR is 26% (17%+9%). We therefore compared two treatments options with a different outcome.
Since the average patients receiving UKRare younger than the average patients receiving TKR, it is therefore questionable to treat the younger patients with a treatment option with a 3-fold higher revision rate (26% instead of 9%). In my opion, UKR shall be reserved for older patients and not for younger patients.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author confirms that this article content has no conflict of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Declared none.
REFERENCES
[1] | Pabinger C, Berghold A, Boehler N, Labek G. Revision rates after knee replacement. Cumulative results from worldwide clinical studies versus joint registers Osteoarthritis Cartil 2013; 21(2): 263-8. |
[2] | Pabinger C, Lumenta DB, Cupak D, Berghold A, Boehler N, Labek G. Quality of outcome data in knee arthroplasty Acta Orthop 2014; 1-5. |
[3] | David E. 7th Annual Report National Joint Registry for England and Wales Available at: http://www.jrcentre.org.uk/ 2010; 93. |