A Meta-analysis of complications of total knee arthroplasty with or without drainage

Abstract

Objective To compare the complication rate of one stage total knee arthroplasty (TKA) with or without drainage. Methods Studies published up to March 2014 were searched in the databases of Pub Med, Embase, Cochrane Library, CNKI and Wan Fang databases, supplemented with manual searching of relevant references of key studies, using the searching terms“drainage”, “one-stage”,“total knee arthroplasty”and“randomized controlled trials”. The methodological quality of included studies was evaluated by Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale. The analyses were performed with Cochrane Rev Man software version 5. 0. Results A total of three randomized controlled trials reporting on 125 patients with an average follow-up of 14 months met the predetermined inclusion criteria. There were 56 total complications in TKA without drainage and 17 with drainage,P 0. 05). Conclusion Both drainage and non-drainage have similar clinical value in one-stage bilateral TKA. However, the conclusion should be used with caution due to the limitations of the current study. Key words: Total knee arthroplasty; Drainage; Randomized controlled trials