Beyond one step: unveiling optimal approach for bilateral knee arthroplasty - a comprehensive meta-analysis

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is an efficient and common procedure used to treat advanced osteoarthritis of the knee. Geriatric patients make up the majority of TKA patients. For the surgical management of bilateral knee arthritis, there is still debate regarding whether to do a simultaneous or staged TKA. We through this study have gathered data and aimed to assess the safety of simultaneous bilateral TKA in patients.

We conducted a study according to the PRISMA guidelines by searching through various databases for the following search terms: total knee arthroplasty (TKA), complications following TKA, bilateral TKA, and bilateral vs. unilateral TKA. The search included case series and clinical trials and excluded review articles, yielding 24 articles from the original search. We extracted data upon the outcomes in patients undergoing simultaneous bilateral TKA. We performed additional bias assessments to validate our search algorithm and results.

One hundred and three published articles were identified, and twenty-four that included a total of 2, 18,385 patients were included in the meta-analysis. 93,074 patients underwent simultaneous bilateral TKA and 125,311 patients underwent staged bilateral TKA. Simultaneous bilateral TKA was associated with significantly increased mortality rate (P < 0.00001, Odd's ratio [OR] 1.86, 95% Confidence interval [CI] 1.53-2.26), increased incidence of pulmonary embolism (P < 0.00001, OR 1.58, 95% CI 1.30-1.91), deep venous thrombosis (P < 0.00001, OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.17-1.46), and neurological complications (P < 0.002, OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.14-1.82). There were no significant differences in cardiac complications between both the procedures (P = 0.60, OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.70-1.23).

Staged bilateral TKA is associated with less complication rates as compared to simultaneous bilateral TKA. Hence, patients should be counselled and selected based on the risks respective to each strategy.