Obesity 'not a reason to deny knee replacement surgery'
New research has suggested that there is no medical justification for denying obese patients knee replacement surgery.
The scientists from the universities of Southampton, Bristol, Oxford and Keele published their findings in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
In the trial the researchers followed 688 patients for a period of six years.
During this time, 325 people had knee replacement surgery and the rest did not. At the start of the survey, the team asked all the patients questions designed to assess their mobility, mental health and wellbeing.
It was found that the mobility of those who had had knee replacement surgery improved over the six years of the study. In contrast, the people who were not offered surgery saw their movement fall.
When only patients that were obese were analysed, the team found that improvements in mobility were sustained.
Professor Cyrus Cooper commented: "The long-term improvement in physical function that we observed in patients who have undergone knee replacement surgery is striking when set against the decline that occurred in the comparison group.
"These benefits extended to those patients who were clinically obese. Our results show that as long as appropriate selection criteria are applied with regard to fitness for surgery, there seems little justification for withholding the operation from patients who are obese."
A spokesman for the Arthritis Research Campaign said the findings ran counter to statistics which showed that the heavier the patient, the less likely it was that surgery would bring about an improvement in symptoms. "Within seven years, obese patients are more than ten times as likely to have an implant fail, compared to healthy weight patients," added the spokesman.
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