A meta-analysis of postoperative outcomes of patients with and without chronic hepatitis C undergoing primary total hip or knee arthroplasty

PURPOSE: This investigation provides a rigorous systematic review of the postoperative outcomes of patients with and without chronic hepatitis C who underwent total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). METHODS: We queried PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Scopus, Web of Science and the ‘gray’ literature, including supplemental materials, conference abstracts and proceedings as well as commentary published in various peer-reviewed journals from 1992 to present to evaluate studies that compared the postoperative outcomes of patients with and without chronic hepatitis C who underwent primary THA or TKA. This investigation was registered in the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews and follows the guidelines provided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. In our literature search, we identified 14 articles that met our inclusion criteria and were included in our fixed-effects meta-analysis. The postoperative outcomes analyzed included periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), aseptic revision, non-homebound discharge and inpatient mortality. RESULTS: Our statistical analysis demonstrated a statistically significant increase in postoperative complications of patients with chronic hepatitis C who underwent primary THA or TKA including PJI (odds ratio (OR): 1.98, 95% CI: 1.86 – 2.10), aseptic revision (OR: 1.58, 95% CI: 1.50 – 1.67), non-homebound discharge (OR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.28– 1.34) and inpatient mortality (OR: 9.37, 95% CI: 8.17 – 10.75). CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis demonstrated a statistically significant increase in adverse postoperative complications in patients with chronic hepatitis C who underwent primary THA or TKA compared to patients without chronic hepatitis C.