The impact of pre-operative obesity on weight change and outcome in total knee replacement: A prospective study of 529 consecutive patients

Abstract

We carried out a prospective, continuous study on 529 patients who underwent primary total knee replacement between January 2006 and December 2007 at a major teaching hospital. The aim was to investigate weight change and the functional and clinical outcome in non-obese and obese groups at 12 months postoperatively. The patients were grouped according to their pre-operative body mass index (BMI) as follows: non-obese (BMI < 30 kg/m2), obese (BMI 3 30 to 39 kg/m2) and morbidly obese (BMI > 40 kg/m2). The clinical outcome data were available for all patients and functional outcome data for 521 (98.5%). Overall, 318 (60.1%) of the patients were obese or morbidly obese. At 12 months, a clinicall..