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Trend shows growing orthopedic surgery case load: Will surgeons be able to keep up?
Kurtz, S., Lau, E., Halpern, M., & Ong, K. (2006). Trend shows growing orthopedic surgery case load: Will surgeons be able to keep up?Materials management in health care, July. http://tiny.cc/zS1Bl
Hip and knee arthroplasties are effective treatments for degenerative joint disease, but may subsequently require surgical revision after joint replacement. For example, the National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on total knee replacement stated that primary total knee replacements are highly successful even though the prosthesis failure rate is about 1 percent per year requiring revision. These revisions represent a burden to patients, surgeons and the health care system; therefore, estimates of the future prevalence of hip and knee replacement revision surgeries should be evaluated.
Historically, increases in revision total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures have been fueled by the increase in patients receiving primary procedures (Fig. 1). These revisions have a significant impact on the health care system. In economic terms, revision THA is estimated to have consumed 20 percent of Medicare hip replacement expenditures between 1997–2001, whereas TKA revisions consumed 9 percent of total annual knee replacement expenditures during this time period.