Are patients more satisfied and have better functional outcome after bilateral total knee arthroplasty as compared to total hip arthroplasty and unilateral total knee arthroplasty surgery? A two-year follow-up study

Abstract

This study aims to review the quality of life and physical improvement achieved by total joint arthroplasty surgery, namely unilateral TKA, bilateral TKA and THA. We hypothesize that patients who undergo bilateral TKA should have greater improvement in patient-reported outcome measures, as compared to patients who had unilateral TKA, and their outcomes may be comparable to that of THA. We analyzed prospectively collected data of all patients who underwent unilateral TKA, bilateral TKA and THA (5291, 187 and 529 patients respectively) for end-stage osteoarthritis at a tertiary hospital during the 5-year period. Patients who underwent bilateral TKA had a greater degree of improvement in SF-36 and Knee Society Scores as compared to unilateral TKA at 6 months and 2 years follow-up. Bilateral TKA had the highest proportion of patients who were satisfied and had expectations met by surgery.