Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 11/24/2009
The complications that may follow knee revision surgery are similar to those for knee replacement. They include:
- Deep vein thrombosis.
- Infection in the new prosthesis.
- Loosening of the new prosthesis. The risk of this complication...
is increased considerably if the patient is overweight. - Formation of heterotopic bone. Heterotopic bone is bone that develops at the lower end of the femur following knee replacement or knee revision surgery. Patients who have had an infection in the joint have an increased risk of heterotopic bone formation.
- Bone fractures during the operation. These are caused by the force or pressure that the surgeon must sometimes apply to remove the old prosthesis and the cement that may be attached to it.
- Dislocation of the new prosthesis. The risk of dislocation is twice as great for revision surgery as for TKR.
- Difference in leg length resulting from shortening of the leg with the prosthesis.
- Additional or more rapid loss of bone tissue.
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Originally published as a patient activity, this animation describes the step-by-step process involved in knee replacement surgery. It shows many of the considerations that orthopedic surgeons face with an artifical knee surgery.
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Other Information
Knee revision surgery, which is also known as revision total knee arthroplasty, is a procedure in which the surgeon removes a previously implanted artificial knee joint, or prosthesis, and replaces it with a new prosthesis. Knee revision surgery may also involve the use of bone grafts. The bone graft may be an autograft, which means that the bone is taken from another site in the patient's own body; or an allograft, which means that the bone tissue comes from another donor.
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New procedures like minimally invasive procedures are often subject to scrutiny, but I think that one of the biggest problems facing these innovative procedures is for people to understand exactly what we do.
-Dr. Michael Perry, Laser Spine institute
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