Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS): Global Research & Reviews Publishes Study Conducted by LSU Department of Orthopaedics

Trying to better predict TKA Outcomes

The project titled "Achieving Validated Thresholds for Clinically Meaningful Change on the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score After Total Knee Arthroplasty: Findings From a University-based Orthopaedic Tertiary Care Safety Net Practice" aims to help identify which patients are at risk of having worse TKA outcomes.

The team used threshold values for the minimal clinically important difference, discovering that patients with better pre-operative knee function were more likely to fail to meet this threshold, indicating the need for better expectation setting in this population. In addition, up to one third of patients in the poorer and sicker than normal study population may be failing to meet this threshold for feeling an improvement, which is a higher percentage than is typically quoted in many studies.

"We hope that this study will prompt others to evaluate outcomes using validated thresholds and continue to look for thresholds that are consistent across various populations," said Adam Haydel.

Research Contributors: Haydel, Adam BS; Guilbeau, Seth BS; Roubion, Ryan MD; Leonardi, Claudia PhD; Bronstone, Amy PhD; Dasa, Vinod MD

Learn more about the JAAOS: Global Research & Reviews