BMI impacts on knee replacement surgery in people with rheumatoid arthritis

Gender, body mass index (BMI) and location impact on joint replacement surgery in people with rheumatoid arthritis says a study in Epidemiology Research.

Experts analysed knee and hip replacement operations in 27,607 people with rheumatoid arthritis in the UK to work out what factors came into play.

A total of 1,028 total hip replacement operations and 1,366 total knee replacement operation were carried out over the 20-year study period.

• Equal numbers of men and women had knee replacement surgery, but more women than men had hip replacements operations.
• The higher a person’s BMI, the more likely they were to have knee replacement operations. But BMI did not impact on hip surgery rates.
• People from areas of socio-economic deprivation were less likely to have knee and hip operations.

“We provide generalizable estimates of total hip replacement and total knee replacement incidence in the UK rheumatoid arthritis patient population and note variation across several key variables,” the experts explain. “Increased BMI was associated with a large increase in total knee replacement but not total hip replacement incidence. Increased deprivation was associated with a downward trend in rates of total hip replacement and total knee replacement.”

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