Abstract
Introduction Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is considered the surgery of the twentieth century due
to its impact on quality of life, and knee arthroplasty (KA) has been proven to be
a cost-effective procedure in cases of gonarthrosis.
Objective To describe the evolution of THA and KA in a general hospital in terms of number
of procedures and the average age and gender of the patients.
Method Analytical cross-sectional study. All procedures performed in a single center, between
January 2002 and December 2018, that were registered by the Chilean National Health
Fund (Fondo Nacional de Salud, FONASA, in spanish) codes for surgeries 2104129 and
2104153 were included. All revision surgeries, as well as tumor- or fracture-related
procedures were excluded. The following data were obtained from the registry: patients'
gender and age at the time of surgery and year of the procedure. A Spearman correlation
analysis was performed, and the significance level was set at 0.05.
Results A total of 3,270 procedures were included: 1,975 THAs (60.4%) and 1,295 KAs (39.6%).
The number of THAs has increased over time, with a total of 122 procedures in 2002
and 164 in 2018. In addition, the number of KAs has also increased, from 40 in 2002
to 155 in 2018. The ratio between THA and KA has been decreasing significantly. The
average age of patients undergoing KAs has decreased, while that of patients undergoing
THAs has increased, without statistical significance. Regarding THAs, we observed
an increase in the proportion of men submitted to the procedure.
Conclusions The epidemiological profile of the patients undergoing arthroplasties has changed
significantly. The epidemiology of the studies in the world literature, as well as
that of the present study, show a significant increase in the number of patients who
require KAs; therefore, it seems important to include this procedure in the development
of new public healthcare policies.
Keywords
hip arthroplasty - knee arthroplasty - osteoarthritis - epidemiology
