September 2020 Article Exchange with JOSPT
For the last 6 years, JBJS has participated in an “article exchange” collaboration with the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT) to support multidisciplinary integration, continuity of care, and excellent patient outcomes in orthopaedics and sports medicine.
During the month of September 2020, JBJS and OrthoBuzz readers will have open access to the JOSPT systematic review titled “Meniscus or Cartilage Injury at the Time of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tear Is Associated with Worse Prognosis for Patient-Reported Outcome 2 to 10 Years after Injury.”
The authors of this systematic review conclude that “patients, physical therapists, orthopaedic surgeons, and athletic trainers [should] be aware that concomitant meniscus or cartilage injuries may lead to worse knee function 2 to 10 years after ACL reconstruction.”
Validity of Non-English PROMs to Assess TKA
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have become increasingly important tools in the 30 years since the orthopaedic community began embracing the movement toward the “patient perspective.” Clinical findings such as range of motion and imaging results remain important, but we have come to understand that pain and function–as reported by the patient–are the most crucial data points. And we are not alone. Insurance companies, registries, scholarly publications, and research review panels now often require PROMs as part of their core evaluations.
But not all PROMs are created equal. For clinicians to trust the output from these instruments, validation of the measures is required. This entails reliability testing and assessment of face, construct, and criterion validity. Furthermore, translating PROMs validated in English into other languages involves not only linguistic translation, but also cultural components in order to capture the full patient perspective.
In the August 5, 2020 issue of The Journal, Bin Sheeha et al. report their work in evaluating the responsiveness, reliability, and validity of the Arabic-language version of the Oxford Knee Score (OKS-Ar). After painstaking statistical analysis of OKS-Ar questionnaires completed by 100 Arabic-speaking patients (80 of whom were female) before and after total knee arthroplasty (TKA), the authors concluded that the OKS-Ar is a valid, sensitive, and easy-to-use instrument to assess pain and function in TKA-treated individuals whose main language is Arabic.
To be truthful, this is not very glamorous research to conduct or very exciting to read about. However, it is absolutely fundamental to ensuring the validity of multicenter, international trials and registry studies. In essence, Bin Sheeha et al. have dug a conduit that facilitates the flow of reliable data and that will help improve future patient care worldwide. As such, it deserves our attention, understanding, and appreciation.
Marc Swiontkowski, MD
JBJS Editor-in-Chief
What’s New in Musculoskeletal Infection 2020
Every month, JBJS publishes a review of the most pertinent and impactful studies published in the orthopaedic literature during the previous year in 13 subspecialties. Click here for a collection of all OrthoBuzz specialty-update summaries.
This month, Thomas K. Fehring, MD, co-author of the July 15, 2020 “What’s New in Musculoskeletal Infection,” selected the five most clinically compelling findings—all focused on periprosthetic joint infection (PJI)—from among the more than 80 noteworthy studies summarized in the article.
PJI Prevention
–A retrospective case-control study1 found that patients who received an allogeneic blood transfusion during or after knee or hip replacement had a higher risk of PJI than those who were not transfused.
PJI Diagnosis
–A retrospective review2 found that using inflammatory markers to diagnose PJI in immunosuppressed joint-replacement patients is not suitable and that newly described thresholds for synovial cell count and differential have better operative characteristics.
Treating PJI
–A retrospective review3 of a 2-stage debridement protocol with component retention in 83 joint-replacement patients showed an 86.7% success rate of infection control at an average follow-up of 41 months.
–A single-center study4 of perioperative antibiotic selection for patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty found that the risk of PJI was 32% lower among those who received cefazolin compared with those who received other antimicrobial agents. The findings emphasize the importance of preoperative allergy testing in patients with stated beta-lactam allergies.
–A review of regional and state antibiograms5 showed that 75% of methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) isolates and 60% of both methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus isolates were susceptible to clindamycin, whereas 99% of all isolates were susceptible to vancomycin.
References
- Taneja A, El-Bakoury A, Khong H, Railton P, Sharma R, Johnston KD, Puloski S, Smith C, Powell J. Association between allogeneic blood transfusion and wound infection after total hip or knee arthroplasty: a retrospective case-control study. J Bone Jt Infect. 2019 Apr 20;4(2):99-105.
- Lazarides AL, Vovos TJ, Reddy GB, Kildow BJ, Wellman SS, Jiranek WA, Seyler TM. Traditional laboratory markers hold low diagnostic utility for immunosuppressed patients with periprosthetic joint infections. J Arthroplasty.2019 Jul;34(7):1441-5. Epub 2019 Mar 12.
- Chung AS, Niesen MC, Graber TJ, Schwartz AJ, Beauchamp CP, Clarke HD, Spangehl MJ. Two-stage debridement with prosthesis retention for acute periprosthetic joint infections. J Arthroplasty.2019 Jun;34(6):1207-13. Epub 2019 Feb 16.
- Wyles CC, Hevesi M, Osmon DR, Park MA, Habermann EB, Lewallen DG, Berry DJ, Sierra RJ. 2019 John Charnley Award: Increased risk of prosthetic joint infection following primary total knee and hip arthroplasty with the use of alternative antibiotics to cefazolin: the value of allergy testing for antibiotic prophylaxis. Bone Joint J.2019 Jun;101-B(6_Supple_B):9-15.
- Nodzo SR, Boyle KK, Frisch NB. Nationwide organism susceptibility patterns to common preoperative prophylactic antibiotics: what are we covering? J Arthroplasty.2019 Jul;34(7S):S302-6. Epub 2019 Jan 17.
Predictors of Prolonged Analgesic Use after Joint Replacement
OrthoBuzz occasionally receives posts from guest bloggers. This guest post comes from Eric Secrist, MD in response to a recent study in Arthritis Research & Therapy.
There has been a proliferation of research regarding postoperative opioid usage after joint arthroplasty due to the widespread opioid epidemic. But Rajamäki and colleagues from Tampere University in Finland took the unique approach of also analyzing acetaminophen and NSAID usage in addition to opioids. The authors used robust data from Finland’s nationwide Drug Prescription Register, which contains reliable information on all medications dispensed from pharmacies, including over-the-counter drugs.
After excluding patients who underwent revision surgery or had their knee or hip replaced for a diagnosis other than osteoarthritis, the authors analyzed 6,238 hip replacements in 5,657 patients and 7,501 knee replacements in 6,791 patients, all performed between 2002 and 2013. The mean patient age was 68.7 years and the mean BMI was 29.
One year postoperatively, 26.1% of patients were still filling prescriptions for one or more analgesics, including NSAIDs (15.5%), acetaminophen (10.1%), and opioids (6.7%). Obesity and preoperative analgesic use were the strongest predictors of prolonged analgesic medication usage 1 year following total joint arthroplasty. Other predictors of ongoing analgesic usage included older age, female gender, and higher number of comorbidities. Patients who underwent knee replacement used the 3 analgesics more often than those who underwent hip replacement.
This study had all of the limitations inherent in retrospective database analyses. Additionally, it was not possible for the authors to determine whether patients took analgesic medications for postoperative knee or hip pain or for pain elsewhere in their body. Finally, the authors utilized antidepressant reimbursement data as a surrogate marker for depression and other medications as a surrogate for a Charlson Comorbidity Index.
Figure 2 from this study (shown below) reveals 2 important findings. First, total joint arthroplasty resulted in a significant decrease in the proportion of patients taking an analgesic medication, regardless of BMI. Second, patients in lower BMI categories were less likely to use analgesics both preoperatively and postoperatively.
The findings from this study may be most useful during preoperative counseling for obese patients, who often present with severe joint pain but are frequently told they need to delay surgery to lose weight and improve their complication-risk profile. Based on this study, those patients can be counseled that losing weight will not only decrease their complication risk, but also decrease their reliance on medications for the pain that led them to seek surgery in the first place.
Eric Secrist, MD is a fourth-year orthopaedic resident at Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina.
July 2020 Article Exchange with JOSPT
For the last 6 years, JBJS has participated in an “article exchange” collaboration with the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT) to support multidisciplinary integration, continuity of care, and excellent patient outcomes in orthopaedics and sports medicine.
During the month of July 2020, JBJS and OrthoBuzz readers will have open access to the JOSPT systematic review and meta-analysis titled “Effectiveness of Weight-Loss Interventions for Reducing Pain and Disability in People with Common Musculoskeletal Disorders.”
The authors found low-credibility evidence that behavioral weight-loss interventions produced small to moderate improvements in pain intensity and disability in people with hip or knee osteoarthritis. They also found moderate-credibility evidence that combined diet and exercise weight-loss strategies improved pain intensity and disability compared to diet-only interventions for knee osteoarthritis.
UKA: Alignment and Overhang Matter
(Reproduced, with permission, from Orthop Traumatol Surg Res. 2016 Apr;102[2]:183-7. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)
These operations were performed by a group of fairly experienced surgeons who averaged >14 UKAs per year, although a commonly used threshold for a “high-volume” UKA surgeon is >15 procedures per year. The cumulative revision rate of 14.2% over 8.7 years, the 5-year Kaplan-Meier survival rate of 88%, and the 10-year survival rate of 70% found by Kazarian et al. are disturbing. Using revision as an endpoint may be problematic because some surgeons are quick to revise a UKA when the radiographic evaluation of component placement is not perfect. Still, this study demonstrates that radiographically determined alignment and overhang “outliers” and “far outliers” had a significantly increased risk of implant failure, compared with patients with good alignment and overhang.
This study did not include UKAs that used computer-assisted methods, but it seems safe to conclude that computer-assisted component placement would be more reliable than “eyeballing,” especially among surgeons with less-experienced eyes. Based on this and other recent studies, I think a controlled trial comparing the functional outcomes and revision rates of UKAs performed with and without computer assistance is warranted.
Marc Swiontkowski, MD
JBJS Editor-in-Chief
Editor’s Note: Click here to read the JBJS Clinical Summary on Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty.
TKA Cost Efficiency Is Improving, But We Can Do Better
Wide variability in the cost and quality of health care in the US has led some to describe our system as “uniquely inefficient.” Consequently, we continue to study variability intensely, especially in the realm of joint arthroplasty. In the June 3, 2020 issue of The Journal, Schilling et al. elegantly analyze the variations in 90-day episode payments made by Medicare Part A for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) from 2014 to 2016. In so doing, they provide a snapshot of hospital cost performance and, just as importantly, they offer a methodology by which to measure future hospital-level cost performance with this very popular surgery.
The authors reviewed >700,000 TKAs in the Medicare population at a time prior to the full implementation of the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model, and they ranked >3,200 hospitals within 9 US regions to determine cost performance. Schilling et al. found that during those 3 years, the mean Medicare episode payment for TKA decreased significantly, due almost entirely to a >$1,500 per-case decrease in post-acute care payments, which included lower costs for skilled nursing facilities and inpatient rehabilitation. Also decreasing during that same period were length of hospital stay and 90-day readmission rates.
These findings highlight the improvements in care and cost efficiency that were occurring even before implementation of the CJR. In a Commentary on this study, Susan Odum, PhD suggests that “the improved value of TKA illustrated by Schilling et al. includes the successful impacts of the BPCI [Bundled Payments for Care Improvement] program,” an alternative payment model that Medicare rolled out beginning in 2013.
On the other hand, the authors also reveal a persistently high degree of variability in episode payments and resource utilization both across and within geographic regions. This strongly suggests the possibility of further improvement. Regardless of which, if any, alternative payment model we participate in, everyone in the orthopaedic community should think about how to become more efficient in our delivery of musculoskeletal care. And this study provides a conceptual framework and benchmarks for identifying where the room for improvement is.
Matthew R. Schmitz, MD
JBJS Deputy Editor for Social Media
PROM ‘Crosswalks’ Are a Big Step Forward
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for orthopaedic procedures have long been used in clinical research. In the last decade, the use of PROMs has expanded to include quality-of-care assessments and, in some healthcare systems, to help calculate costs and reimbursements. All this has made PROMs increasingly visible to patients.
There are several validated and widely used PROMs for hip and knee arthroplasty. One problem with those is that the data from one PROM are not interchangeable with data from another. That disconnect limits the opportunity for meaningful data aggregation and thwarts large-scale population research.
In the June 3, 2020 issue of The Journal, Polascik et al. tackle this problem head-on. They report on a “crosswalk” system that allows back-and-forth conversion between 4 of the most commonly used PROMS—the Oxford hip and knee scores and the HOOS and KOOS short-form scores. The authors developed this tool by applying sophisticated statistical methods to data from a large cohort of hip and knee arthroplasty patients. The accuracy of the 4 crosswalks Polascik et al. developed was substantiated when they found minimal differences between the means of the known and crosswalk-derived scores.
This practical tool for converting scores is a substantial advance in patient-reported outcomes research. It will further facilitate the pooling of data for use in future clinical research, quality-of-care initiatives, and reimbursement systems. Patients, surgeons, researchers, and health systems alike all stand to benefit greatly.
Marc Swiontkowski, MD
JBJS Editor-in-Chief
JBJS Announces 2019 EST Award Winners
JBJS Essential Surgical Techniques (EST) and The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) give out two annual awards–one for the best Subspecialty Procedure (SP) article, and the other for the best Key Procedures (KP) video published during each calendar year.
We are pleased to announce the winners for 2019:
- Editor’s Choice Technique Award:
Patellofemoral Arthroplasty
by Anders Odgaard, MD, DMSc, FRCS; Jonathan Eldridge, MD, FRCS; and Frank Madsen, MD - Editor’s Choice Video Award:
Repair of Tibial Plateau Fracture (Schatzker II)
by Dylan T. Lowe, MD; Michael T. Milone, MD; Leah J. Gonzalez, BS; and Kenneth A. Egol, MD
Both articles are freely available online until the end of August 2020.
Submissions for the 2020 EST Awards are currently being accepted.
May 2020 Article Exchange with JOSPT
For the last 6 years, JBJS has participated in an “article exchange” collaboration with the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT) to support multidisciplinary integration, continuity of care, and excellent patient outcomes in orthopaedics and sports medicine.
During the month of May 2020, JBJS and OrthoBuzz readers will have open access to the JOSPT article titled “Athletes with Bone-Patellar Tendon-Bone Autograft for ACL Reconstruction Were Slower to Meet Rehabilitation Milestones and Return-to-Sport Criteria than Athletes with Hamstring Tendon Autograft or Soft Tissue Allograft.”
Although the title reveals the findings of this retrospective cohort study, the authors emphasize that “athletes in the allograft and HT groups may be at higher risk of sustaining another knee injury when they return to sport…than those in the BPTB group.” Also, all 79 participants in the study were athletes planning to return to level 1 or 2 sporting activities, so these findings may not be generalizable to all athletes.
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