A retrospective medium- to long-term results of 1500 AGC total knee replacements – An independent centre functional follow up and survivorship

BackgroundThe AGC knee is one of the most widely used knee replacements in the world with good survivorship in national joint registries, including the Swedish within which it remains the gold standard of risk.PurposeHowever, there are few long term survivorship reviews from the centre other than those affiliated with the designer that also offer any insight into functional outcome. In this review, we present the results of one of the largest non-designer, medium- to long term follow-ups of the AGC knee replacement.MethodsA total of 1538 AGC knees were performed during a 15 year period, of which 902 were followed up by postal or telephone questionnaire using Oxford Knee Scores, Visual Analogue Scores (VASs) of function and pain and survival analysis.Results87.5% of patients reported excellent or good functional reports at final follow up and 90.3% reporting excellent or good pain scores.There is a mean survivorship of 95.88% at 15 years from the 1538 knees. 85.7% of patients had an Oxford score of between 12 and 40, with 71.2% scoring between 0 and 30. 65.6% of patients responded with a VAS of 0 or 1 at rest (minimum pain = 0) and 53.9% reported a VAS of 0 or 1 while walking.InterpretationOur study shows excellent mid to long term results in a large group of patients was achieved using the AGC TKR implanted by a variety of Consultants and trainee surgeons.This review and data from national registries suggest that in terms of both survivorship and function demonstrate the AGC knee replacement still remains the knee that newer designs must be measured against.