Obesity prevalence is rapidly growing and becoming a critical health issue, especially in developed countries. Obesity and life expectancy increase are the main reasons for the rising incidence of osteoarthritis (OA). Obese patients greatly benefit from surgical OA treatment and should therefore not be denied any intervention, including knee arthroplasty, regardless of their body mass index.
Conservative measures, such as lifestyle modification, exercise, and pharmacological treatment with systematic slow-acting drugs for OA (SYSADOA) like glucosamine sulphate, chondroitine sulphate or curcumine, topical or oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and intra-articular steroids or hyaluronic acid injections should be tried before resorting to knee surgery. Minimally invasive knee prosthesis, respecting soft tissue as much as possible, might be particularly beneficial for obese patients, reducing complication rates and improving outcome. However, further studies are needed to confirm this trend.
What is already known about the topic?
Obesity is known to be a risk factor for osteoarthritis development, and it also has a negative impact on clinical outcome after knee arthroplasty.
What does this article bring up for us?
This article brings practical and concrete up-to-date recommendations regarding knee osteoarthritis treatment, especially in obese patients.
Key Words
Gonarthrosis, arthrosis, obesity, knee prosthesis, knee arthroplasty