The number of knee arthroplasty operations in China has increased year by year. In 2011, there were about 50,000 cases, while the number of patients undergoing knee replacement surgery in the United States was about 500,000 each year, 10 times that in China. With the extensive development of this technology in China, a large number of patients do not need to endure diseases and take medicine to deal with them as in the past, but instead seek more effective and direct surgical treatment. Joint replacement is no longer a topic discussed by a few people. Many elderly people who used to need crutches to support themselves but now walk freely are happy to share their joint replacement experience with relatives and friends. Why do you want knee replacement? Symptomatic osteoarthritis, It can be used by conservative treatment, oral anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs, local external application drugs or intra-articular injection. To relieve the symptoms. But, If osteoarthritis is advanced, Cartilage wear is so severe that conservative treatment can hardly work again. To relieve the pain, the only way is surgery. Chinese patients have come a long way from believing, watching, fearing, wanting to try to finally undergo surgery. At present, most patients have already approved joint replacement. Do both sides perform the surgery together or separately? Knee joint is a big weight-bearing joint of human body, Generally, one side is the most serious disease. The human body is out of self-protection, Often choose to put too much weight on the relatively good side, so the other leg will also have problems after a long time. The vast majority of patients see a doctor when both sides are painful, but one side is heavy while the other side is light. Then the problem also comes, if both legs need surgical treatment of patients, is it two legs to do together, or separate surgery? The interval between the two separate operations mentioned here needs to be more than 3 months. This problem varies from person to person. But in summary, The advantages and disadvantages between them are as follows: 1. The operation time is generally not much different between the two, If you are a very skilled doctor, The time for bilateral surgery is usually no more than 3 hours. However, if it is a hospital or doctor who has just performed the operation, It would be preferable to do so separately, Otherwise, the impact of too long operation time on the patient as a whole is still relatively large. 2. Bleeding volume in order to prepare for the operation, Or the amount of bleeding during the operation and the possibility of blood transfusion, the certainty of bilateral surgery is higher than that of open surgery. 3. The hospitalization time and cost of bilateral surgery are shorter than that of separate surgery, so the related cost is relatively lower. However, the specific costs vary greatly from place to place, Taking Peking Union Medical College Hospital as an example, Unilateral surgery in general wards, Had it not been for the special circumstances of what, It is about 50,000 yuan. 4. The risk of surgery is that bilateral surgery is slightly more traumatic after all. Therefore, the risks before and after the operation are relatively large. 5. Different patients with postoperative rehabilitation training are quite different. Some patients think that separate surgery can be completed and one side can recover for a period of time first. At this time, functional exercise will not be as difficult as after bilateral surgery. However, if the deformity of both legs of the patient is serious, Separate surgery will break the patient’s previous walking habits. It is to adapt the knee after surgery to its original state. Or learn a new walking gait, This becomes a problem, Often results in poor functional training after surgery. 6. Other problems to be evaluated. Since most patients undergoing knee arthroplasty are elderly, The choice of one or two sides of the operation also needs to take into account that the patient has not only the knee joint, Specific physical conditions, Such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases, Or whether there have been other important organ diseases recently, What is the nutritional status before surgery, etc. If there are these problems, Often need to go through detailed preoperative examination and evaluation, several departments can decide after consultation. Each coin has two sides, the same reason, both sides of the operation together and separate surgery also have their own advantages and disadvantages. Need to be based on the patient’s own conditions, doctor’s judgment, surgical techniques, pre-and post-operation treatment and other comprehensive evaluation after careful selection.
