Chronic Corticosteroid Use as a Risk Factor for Perioperative Complications in Patients Undergoing Total Joint Arthroplasty

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis may be caused by or concurrent with diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus, which rely on chronic corticosteroids regimens for treatment. If a total knee or hip arthroplasty is needed, this chronic treatment method has been associated with poorer surgical outcomes. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of data collected by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program was conducted. The Current Procedural Terminology codes were used to identify 403,566 total knee arthroplasty and total hip arthroplasty patients who were then stratified by the use of chronic corticosteroids for univariate analysis. RESULTS: Forteen thousand seven hundred seventy-four of the patients identified were prescribed chronic corticosteroid regimens. A statistically significant difference was observed in perioperative complications for patients prescribed with corticosteroids, including higher rates of surgical site infection (P = 0.0001), occurrence of deep incisional surgical site infection (P < 0.0001), occurrences of organ space surgical site infection (P < 0.0001), wound dehiscence (P < 0.0001), general would infection (P < 0.0001), pneumonia (P < 0.0001), occurrences of unplanned intubation (P = 0.0002), urinary tract infection (P < 0.0001), and readmission (P < 0.0001). No statistically significant difference was observed in the 30-day mortality between the 2 groups (0.63), venous thromboembolic event (0.42), cerebrovascular accident (0.12), myocardial infarction (0.49), cardiac arrest (0.098), deep vein thrombosis (0.17), or sepsis (0.52). CONCLUSION: Many of the notable differences in complications may be directly attributed to the immunosuppressive nature of corticosteroids. With increased knowledge of which perioperative complications to monitor, surgeons can tailor treatment strategies to this population that reduce morbidity and improve outcomes.