Knee arthritis is a common problem in India. It is estimated that around 7.2. crore Indians suffer from disabling arthritis. Total knee replacement surgery has been a successful operation throughout the world for last 2 decades. Patients can resume their normal lifestyle after a joint replacement surgery. (see photograph of a lady sitting cross legged)

Patients can climb, use public transport and even sit cross legged.

However the cost involved in getting a knee replacement surgery is on the higher side and since the disease most of the times affects both the knees many deserving patients are unable to get the surgery done for financial reasons alone.

We now use a new technique to reduce the cost of surgery for such patients. This procedure is called ?Bilateral One Stage Knee replacement?. In simple terms it means that both the knees are operated at one sitting!


Let us see what happens to a patient who has arthritis involving both knees equally. In good old days the patient used to get one surgery done and then wait for 6 weeks for the second one to be done. Since the patient continued to walk with one painful and one pain free knee he never got benefited from the surgery till the second knee was operated. Eventually the patient tasted the fruits of success only after 2 to 3 months after the second surgery or around 5months after undergoing the first surgery. Another important factor was that the patient had 2 hospital stays and 2 anaesthetic procedures and of course 2 hospital bills!

With the advent of safe anaesthesia techniques now we can offer two surgeries in one go! The obvious advantage is that the patient can walk pain free very early since he now has 2 pain free knees. He saves a lot of money because there is only one hospital admission and one anaesthesia. The hospital stay is exactly half!

So let?s see how do we go about planning this surgery.

Like all other patients the patient who is a likely candidate for one stage bilateral knee replacements undergoes medical tests to assess his suitability for this surgery. A qualified anaesthetist then examines the patient and evaluated his laboratory results. If the patient is founds fit to undergo the surgery then he is given suitable anaesthesia and the surgeon prepares both his knees at one go and completes the surgery one after another. The total time for the procedure is approximately 3 to three and half hours. The patient usually goes home in 7 days! If the patient?s medical condition is not up to the mark after the first surgery the second surgery is not carried out.

If the patient has medical problems which exclude him from two operations in one go then he undergoes 2 separate procedures as we used to do say 3 years ago.

It is important for the patients to realize that if we undertake interval surgeries then many times the patient can face complications in the second surgery since his immunity is at a lower level after the first surgery. It is usually safe to undergo second surgery only after 8 weeks after the first surgery. There is no such problem in one stage surgery and the complication rates are much lower contrary to the popular belief! We also have the facility of auto transfusion where the patient can donate his own blood to himself! Patients who are likely to need a blood transfusion are bled ached of their surgery and this blood is transfused during the surgical procedure. This is a very safe procedure and avoids the risk of transmitting diseases via blood transfusions. There are new drugs available which can also be used to avoid blood transfusions, though it increase the total cost of the surgery. The other benefits of anaesthesia and help of computers in surgery obviously are used in these one stage procedure.

Al in all we now have succeeded in performing two surgeries in one go safely which is a boon to patients with 2 bad knees!

Visit my website ?drarchik.com? for photographs of patients having undergone knee replacement surgeries.