A total of 130 articles were retrieved. These reported a total of 154 patient cohorts (9,879 patients), of which 4 studies used a clinical trial design, 53 were prospective cohort studies, 77 were historical studies, and 20 studies were of undetermined design.
Improved function following tricompartmental knee replacement.
Across all studies, the typical patient experienced a 100% improvement in GKRS, mean value 44.0 (range: 41.9-46.1) and 89.3% of patients were reported to have good or excellent outcomes (mean follow-up of 4.1 years).
Pain relief.
Twenty-six studies reported patients' post-operative pain (n=1,938; mean follow-up 4.1 years). Of these studies, 75% of patients reported no post-operative pain, 20% reported mild pain, 3.7% reported moderate pain, and 1.3% reported severe post-operative pain.
Post-operative complications.
Approximately 18% of patients experienced a post-operative complication. None of the studies reported the rate of thromboembolism during the short-term, i.e. 30-day period.
The overall rate of revision was 3.8% (mean follow-up 4.1 years). Reasons for these revisions were: aseptic loosening (42%), mechanical failure (29%), infection (21%) and unspecified (8%). The distribution of these failures over time could not be determined.
The 30-day and 1-year mortality rates following tricompartmental total knee replacement could not be determined, nor was it possible to determine which deaths were directly due to the replacement.