The painful knee after total knee arthroplasty

Excerpt

This issue will provide a comprehensive overview about pain after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). It is one of the most difficult issues after TKA. How can we best treat patients who experience persistent pain? Unfortunately, we might see an increasing number of patients with unexplained pain after TKA in the near future, due to the constantly increased number of patients undergoing primary TKA. Two major reasons appear to be responsible for the increased number of TKA. First of all the population is getting older and it has been estimated that approximately 25% of the entire population will be older than 65 years in 2050. Second, the patients are nowadays more demanding in terms of activities of daily life. The world has to face a huge economic burden in the near future in order to treat patients suffering from osteoarthritis [10]. Primary and revision TKA increased approximately 300 and 220%, respectively, between 1991 and 2004 causing an explosion of costs from 5 to 15 billion USD with regard to primary TKA in the United States. It has been estimated that the number of primary TKA will rise up to 3–4 million and revision TKA up to 270,000 annually [6]. …