Revision Joint Replacement Surgery

Revision Knee surgery is a more complex procedure when compared to the original knee replacement procedure. It is slightly more time consuming.

During your admission in the hospital, you will be seen and assessed by the Anaesthetist. During your surgery the old knee implant is removed which may have become loose or infected or is the cause of the pain. After assessing the bone stock and depending upon the healthy state of the natural bone and the bone stock, a new prosthesis is inserted. If the bone is not healthy or if there are signs of some infection, then a temporary mould is applied to treat any infection which leeches’ antibiotics to treat the infection. Once the infection is controlled then a second surgery is undertaken to implant the new knee replacement. We may then need to use a larger implant with use of additional support to give good structural stability.

Revision surgery is a more significant undertaking for patients and recovery is therefore often longer than what one might expect for standard primary ‘first time’ knee replacement surgery. However, often results can be very encouraging, particularly if the primary knee joint replacement surgery was less than satisfactory in the first instance. The procedure is often a fairly lengthy operation with removal of the unsatisfactory implant from the knee and the building of a modular or custom built knee prosthesis in theatre around the patient’s own specific requirements for movement and stability. This requires the use of a specialised prosthetic system to re-align the knee and correct any technical issues that may have been present in the first surgery or, indeed, to address the wear that has occurred in any knee joint that has failed through natural usage.