Patients receiving knee arthroplasty with pre-existing long-term aspirin use suffer lower risk of perioperative complications but feel more postoperative pain.

Abstract

Aspirin has gained increasing use-popularity on account of its multiple benefits. The present study aimed to investigate how a pre-existing long-term aspirin use (L-AU) would affect perioperative complications and postoperative pain in primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) patients. Utilizing the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database, primary TKAs were divided into L-AU and non-L-AU cohorts. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to match the demographics and comorbidities characteristics. Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were calculated for the risk analysis of perioperative complications and postoperative pain. The popularity of L-AU in primary TKA patients had significantly increased from 1.5% (2005) to 10.5% (2014) in the U.S. Pre-existing L-AU was associated with decreased risks of most perioperative complications (any complication, adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.920), in-hospital mortality (aOR: 0.367), and shortened hospitalization stay (LOS) (aOR: 0.647), etc. However, L-AU was recognized as a risk factor of acute postoperative pain (aOR: 1.466) and slightly higher total cost (aOR: 1.047). For the first time in the present study, it is found that pre-existing long-term aspirin use is benefic in reducing perioperative complication risk. According to this finding, future research might determine the optimal pre-operational taking time and dose of aspirin use. Consequently, orthopedic surgeons and healthcare providers could provide this valuable advice to specific patients prior to a planned arthroplasty and subsequently gain feasible clinical benefits.