Are Patient-Reported Outcomes Indicative of Post-Operative Success?

Exponent Principal Engineer Kevin Ong, Ph.D., P.E., authored a "CORR Insights" commentary on the article "Do the Revision Rates of Arthroplasty Surgeons Correlate with Postoperative Patient-reported Outcome Measure Scores? A Study from the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry" in Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research, a publication of the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons.

The original article highlights that patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), revision rates, or both may not be accurate indicators of the success of joint arthroplasty. The researchers found that a surgeon's two-year cumulative percent revision rate did not have a clinically relevant correlation with certain PROMs after total hip or knee arthroplasty.

According to Dr. Ong, joint replacement registries report outcomes data by implant, but they provide limited examination of the interactions of the other patient and surgical factors that play critical roles in the final patient disposition. Implant positioning, specific health conditions (e.g., smoking history or low bone density/quality), and activity level need to be collected to improve both the quality and types of data collected by registries.

While PROMs and revision surgery are important measures of success after joint arthroplasty, obtaining and incorporating more granular data of key patient, surgical, and implant factors and conducting a more thorough analysis can go a long way in further advancing the quality of care for patients.

From the publication: "If certain PROMS can be more predictive of revision surgery, then clinicians may be able to take steps sooner to provide care for the patients, perhaps even in a conservative manner to avoid more invasive revision surgery."