Same-day versus staged bilateral total knee arthroplasty poses no increase in complications in 6672 primary procedures.

We examined the assumption that patients undergoing same-day bilateral total knee arthroplasty (TKA) have a higher incidence of major peri-operative complications than patients who stage their procedures over the course of a year. Between April 2001 and March 2007, prospective data were collected using a total joint registry. Patients undergoing primary, bilateral, same-day, TKAs were compared to patients undergoing primary, staged, bilateral TKAs within 12 months of the index operation. A total of 2441 TKAs were performed on the same day, while 4231 were staged. There were no significant differences in 90-day mortality, thrombotic events and infections between the two groups. Performing same-day bilateral TKA does not predispose patients to increased cumulative incidence of major complications over staged arthroplasty.