The Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register 1975-1997: an update with special emphasis on 41,223 knees operated on in...

From 1975, when the Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register (SKAR) started, until the end of 1997, 57,533 primary arthroplasties and revisions have been registered. Recently, the register underwent a comprehensive validation and update regarding revisions. We now report on general demographic and epidemiological data for the whole period and on the survivorship of arthroplasties performed in Sweden during 1988-1997. During this 10-year period, 41,223 primary knee arthroplasties were performed on 34,877 patients. We found, as in our earlier reports, that survivorship was affected by patient-, time-, implant- and method-related factors but, apart from an overall higher cumulative revision rate, general conclusions reported from the register in recent years appeared to be unaffected.