"Should You Have Knee Replacement Surgery?" -Jane E. Brody
For the vast majority of patients with debilitating knee pain, joint replacement surgery is considered an “elective” procedure. In a multicenter study reported last year of 4,498 people with arthritic knees and a second study of 2,907 people with arthritis, improvement in the quality of patients’ lives following knee replacement surgery were less than had been previously reported. Bart S. Ferket, MD, PhD, assistant professor of population health science and policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and co-authors stated that those with the worst functional status initially had the most to gain from surgery and made the operation economically most justifiable. “The key issue is selecting those patients most likely to benefit from surgery,” said Dr. Ferket. “At the moment, this is not optimal. Up to 20 percent of patients are not satisfied with the outcome of surgery.”
- Bart S. Ferket, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai