While the risk of a heart attack tapers over time, the risk of a blood clot is enhanced several years later, say the researchers.
Yuquing Zhang, senior study author from Boston University School of Medicine told Reuters through email that the reasons for the enhanced risk was not clear at this point of time. Regardless, he said, the findings suggest that the risk of a heart attack in the weeks after total joint replacement surgery "may have been previously underappreciated," and ways to prevent this serious complication may need to be considered.
Zhang along with his colleagues examined about 40,000 patients who were 50 years of age or older and all of them had osteoarthritis. They also compared 13,849 patients who had undergone knee replacement to another group of people who never had the surgery. Comparative study was also done on another 6,000 patients who underwent surgery for hip replacement with a similar number of people who did not go through the surgery.
35 heart attacks were reported within a month from the operations in the case of patients who had knee replacement, compared to only 4 in the control group. During the same period, 13 heart attacks were reported in patients who had a hip replacement whereas it was only 3 in the control group.
Risk of heart attack was also the highest during the first month following a surgery and declined over time, say the study authors. Three years after the surgeries, the rate of heart attack evened out for the control groups as well as the surgery groups.
With regard to thromboembolism, a type of blood clot, the patients who had knee replacement 190 patients suffered from this condition in the first month and that compared to just 3 in the control group. In the case of patients who had a hip surgery, 78 patients suffered blood clot while it was a solitary instance in the control group. In the surgery group, even after a lapse of 5 years from the date of surgery, the risk of a blood clot was still higher.
In an earlier study, it was in fact suggested that surgery for joint replacement could in fact decrease heart attack risk over the long run and also afford protection to the cardiovascular system.
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