Pain after knee arthroplasty: an unresolved issue

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Anesthesiology
• Pain Management

Background:

• Postoperative pain after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) significantly impacts patient quality of life and rehabilitation.
• Despite advances, TKA pain management remains a critical clinical issue.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive overview of pain mechanisms following TKA.
• To explore current multimodal pain management strategies for TKA patients.

Main Methods:

• A narrative review of peer-reviewed articles on knee arthroplasty pain was conducted.
• Included recent research on incisional pain mechanisms and postsurgical pain.
• Searches were performed in PubMed, Cochrane, and Google Scholar databases.

Main Results:

• Postsurgical pain involves local and systemic inflammatory responses.
• Peri-operative pain management includes anesthetic techniques and multimodal analgesia.
• Novel approaches effectively decrease acute TKA pain and mitigate chronic pain development.

Conclusions:

• This review clarifies pain mechanisms after knee arthroplasty.
• Multimodal pain management is key to reducing pain intensity and duration post-TKA.