Early Postoperative Outcomes of Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty After Solid Organ Transplantation in the United States, 1998–2011

This review of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (1998–2011) examined trends in solid organ transplant patients who received a total knee arthroplasty (TKA) to determine whether length of stay (LOS), cost, and perioperative complications differed from non-transplant peers. Primary TKA patients (n = 5,870,421) were categorized as: (1) those with a history of solid organ transplant (n = 6104) and (2) those without (n = 5,864,317). Propensity matching was used to estimate adjusted effects of solid organ transplant history on perioperative outcomes. The percentage of TKA patients with a transplant history grew during the study period from 0.069% to 0.103%. Adjusted outcomes showed patients with a transplant had a 0.44 day longer LOS, $962 higher cost of admission, and were 1.43 times more likely to suffer any complication (P = 0.0002).