With an ageing population of patients who are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), the demand for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in this high-risk group continues to grow. It has previously been shown that HCV infection predisposes to poor outcomes following TKA. However, there is little information about the outcome of TKA in patients with HCV who have been treated successfully. The purpose of this study was to compare the outcomes of TKA in untreated HCV patients and those with HCV who have been successfully treated and have a serologically confirmed remission. A retrospective review of all patients diagnosed with HCV who underwent primary TKA between November 2011 and April 2018 was conducted. HCV patients were divided into two groups: 1) those whose HCV was cured (HCV-C); and 2) those in whom it was untreated (HCV-UT). All variables including demographics, HCV infection characteristics, surgical details, and postoperative medical and surgical outcomes were evaluated. There were 64 patients (70 TKAs) in the HCV-C group and 63 patients (71 TKAs) in the HCV-UT cohort. The mean age at the time of surgery was 63.0 years (Aims
Patients and Methods
Interferon (IFN) based treatments for chronic hepatitis C (HCV) have been the standard of care until 2014 when direct antiviral agents (DAA) were introduced. Patients with HCV have had extremely high complication rates after total hip arthroplasty (THA). It is unknown whether HCV is a modifiable risk factor for these complications prior to THA. The purpose of this study was 1) to compare perioperative complication rates between untreated and treated HCV in THA and 2) to compare these rates between patients treated with two different therapies (IFN vs. DAA). A multicenter retrospective database query was used to identify patients diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C virus who underwent total hip arthroplasty from 2006–2016. All patients (n=105) identified were included and were divided into two groups: untreated HCV (n=63) and treated (n=42); the treated group were further subdivided into those receiving IFN based therapies (n=16) or DAA therapies (n=26). Comparisons between the treated and untreated groups were made with respect to demographic data, comorbidities, preoperative viral load, MELD score, and all surgical (≤1 yr) and medical (≤90d) complications; a sub-group analysis of the treated patients was also performed. Separate independent t-tests were conducted for dependent variables that were normally distributed, and Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted for variables which were not normally distributed. Categorical variables were compared through the chi-square test of independence. The level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05.Introduction
Methods
