Total knee replacement is linked to reduced pain but with serious side effects, trial finds

Total knee replacement is associated with greater pain relief and functional improvement than non-surgical treatment but also with more serious adverse events in people with osteoarthritis, a randomised controlled trial has shown. It also found that nearly three quarters of patients treated non-surgically did not require an operation in the following year.

The trial, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine,1 randomised 100 patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis to undergo total knee replacement followed by a rigorous 12 week non-surgical treatment regimen or to …