The John Insall Award: gender-specific total knee replacement: prospectively collected clinical outcomes

Gender-specific total knee replacement design is a recent and debated topic. We determined the survivorship and clinical outcomes of a large primary total knee arthroplasty cohort, specifically assessing any differences between gender groups. A consecutive cohort of 3817 patients with 5279 primary total knee replacements (3100 female, 2179 male) with a minimum of 2 years followup were evaluated. Preoperative, latest, and change in clinical outcome scores (WOMAC, SF-12, KSCRS) were compared. While men had higher raw scores preoperatively, women had greater improvement in all WOMAC domains including pain (29.87 versus 27.3), joint stiffness (26.78 versus 24.26), function (27.21 versus 23.09), and total scores (28.35 versus 25.09). There were no gender differences in improvements of the SF-12 physical scores. Men had greater improvement in Knee Society function (22.1 versus 18.63) and total scores (70.01 versus 65.42), but not the Knee Society knee score (47.83 versus 46.64). Revision rates were 10.2% for men and 8% for women. Women demonstrated greater implant survivorship, greater improvement in WOMAC scores, equal improvements in SF-12 scores, and less improvement in only the Knee Society function and total scores. The data refute the hypothesis of inferior clinical outcome for women following total knee arthroplasty when using standard components.

Level II, prognostic study. See the Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.