Re-Doing Failed Knee Surgery

Re-doing Failed Knee Surgery

The clinic has become a referral centre for cases where their first operation did not do well. Such patients often take advice from multiple doctors. Because of the complexity of treatment, and unpredictable results they are often ignored, and present to us late.

Over the years, we have become experts on re-doing failed knee surgeries. Patients are referred from all over India and abroad. Such cases need thorough evaluation with x-rays and scans. It needs a lot of planning in treatment. Often these cases involve multiple surgeries. They need long periods of physiotherapy. Some examples of such cases are as shown below.

Case 1: This 35 year old man was referred to us from Rajasthan (300 Km away). He sustained a seemingly simple fracture at the back of the knee, called Hoffa’s fracture. The same was operated by the local doctor, who considered it simple, with the help of two screws. The fracture got displaced while under care, and he developed deformity and was unable to walk. The reason was again, the first surgeon could not realize the nitty-gritty of the fracture.

It required opening from the back of the knee, which is a difficult and sensitive area of the knee because the blood vessels supplying the leg lie in that area. It needed surgery from front and back.

We took him up for surgery, removed the screws from front, and then turned the patient over. We could successfully reposition the fracture, and fix it with plate and screws. We could bend his knee fully on the operation table itself. The patient could move his knee the very next day, and reached a nearly normal knee in 4 months.

Case 2: This 75 year old lady got both her knees operated outside. Both knee partial replacement was done. She sustained fracture under both the artificial part, and thus had a lot of pain and swelling, making it difficult for her to walk. We had to take her up for surgery. On one side we fixed the fracture in proper position and on the other side we had to convert the partial knee into a full knee replacement. The patient could walk on her knees after 4 months.