Original Research

Evaluation of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Appropriate Use Criteria for the Nonarthroplasty Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis in Veterans

Fed Pract. 2019 March;36(3):116-121

References

1. Cross M, Smith E, Hoy D, et al. The global burden of hip and knee osteoarthritis: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study. Ann Rheum Dis. 2014;73(7):1323-1330.

2. Losina E, Walensky RP, Kessler CL, et al. Cost-effectiveness of total knee arthroplasty in the United States: patient risk and hospital volume. Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(12):1113-1121; discussion 1121-1122.

3. Members of the Writing, Review, and Voting Panels of the AUC on the Non-Arthroplasty Treatment of Osteoarthritis of the Knee, Sanders JO, Heggeness MH, Murray J, Pezold R, Donnelly P. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Appropriate Use Criteria on the Non-Arthroplasty Treatment of Osteoarthritis of the Knee. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2014;96(14):1220-1221.

4. Sanders JO, Murray J, Gross L. Non-arthroplasty treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2014;22(4):256-260.

5. Yates AJ Jr, McGrory BJ, Starz TW, Vincent KR, McCardel B, Golightly YM. AAOS appropriate use criteria: optimizing the non-arthroplasty management of osteoarthritis of the knee. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2014;22(4):261-267.

6. Riddle DL, Perera RA. Appropriateness and total knee arthroplasty: an examination of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons appropriateness rating system. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2017;25(12):1994-1998.

7. Morgan RC Jr, Slover J. Breakout session: ethnic and racial disparities in joint arthroplasty. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2011;469(7):1886-1890.

8. O’Connor MI, Hooten EG. Breakout session: gender disparities in knee osteoarthritis and TKA. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2011;469(7):1883-1885.

9. Ibrahim SA. Racial and ethnic disparities in hip and knee joint replacement: a review of research in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2007;15(suppl 1):S87-S94.

10. Karmarkar TD, Maurer A, Parks ML, et al. A fresh perspective on a familiar problem: examining disparities in knee osteoarthritis using a Markov model. Med Care. 2017;55(12):993-1000.

11. Kohn MD, Sassoon AA, Fernando ND. Classifications in brief: Kellgren-Lawrence Classification of Osteoarthritis. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2016;474(8):1886-1893.

12. Nguyen U, Felson DT, Niu J, et al. The impact of knee instability with and without buckling on balance confidence, fear of falling and physical function: the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2014;22(4):527-534.

13. Schmitt LC, Fitzgerald GK, Reisman AS, Rudolph KS. Instability, laxity, and physical function in patients with medial knee osteoarthritis. Phys Ther. 2008;88(12):1506-1516.

14. Laupattarakasem W, Laopaiboon M, Laupattarakasem P, Sumananont C. Arthroscopic debridement for knee osteoarthritis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008;(1):CD005118.

15. Lamplot JD, Brophy RH. The role for arthroscopic partial meniscectomy in knees with degenerative changes: a systematic review. Bone Joint J. 2016;98-B(7):934-938.

16. Whittle R, Jordan KP, Thomas E, Peat G. Average symptom trajectories following incident radiographic knee osteoarthritis: data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. RMD Open. 2016;2(2):e000281.

17. Jones A, Kwoh CK, Kelley ME, Ibrahim SA. Racial disparity in knee arthroplasty utilization in the Veterans Health Administration. Arthritis Rheum. 2005;53(6):979-981.

Patients with knee instability used fewer total AAOS AUC evaluated interventions prior to TKA. Subjective instability has been reported as high as 27% in patients with OA and has been associated with fear of falling, poor balance confidence, activity limitations, and lower Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) physical function scores.¹² However, it has not been found to correlate with knee laxity.¹³ Nevertheless, significant functional impairment with the risk of falling may reduce the number of nonarthroplasty interventions attempted. On the other hand, the presence of mechanical symptoms resulted in greater utilization of nonarthroplasty interventions. This is likely due to the greater utilization of arthroscopic partial menisectomy or loose body removal in this group of patients. Despite its inclusion as an AAOS AUC evaluated intervention, arthroscopy remains a contentious treatment for symptomatic knee pain in the setting of OA.^14,15

For every unit decrease in Kellgren-Lawrence OA grade, patients were 54% more likely to receive a rarely appropriate intervention prior to knee arthroplasty. This is supported by the recent literature examining the AAOS AUC for surgical management of knee OA. Riddle and colleagues developed a classification tree to determine the contributions of various prognostic variables in final classifications of the 864 clinical vignettes used to develop the appropriateness algorithm and found that OA severity was strongly favored, with only 4 of the 432 vignettes with severe knee OA judged as rarely appropriate for surgical intervention.⁶

Our findings, too, may be explained by an AAOS AUC system that too heavily weighs radiographic severity of knee OA, resulting in more frequent rarely appropriate interventions in patients with less severe arthritis, including nonarthroplasty treatments. It is likely that rarely appropriate interventions were attempted in this subset of our study cohort based on patient’s subjective symptoms and functional status, both of which have been shown to be discordant with radiographic severity of knee OA.¹⁶

Oral or transcutaneous prescribed opioid medications were the most frequent intervention that received a rarely appropriate designation. Patients with preoperative opioid use undergoing TKA have been shown to have a greater risk for postoperative complications and longer hospital stay, particularly those patients aged < 75 years. Younger age, use of more interventions, and decreased knee ROM at presentation were predictive of longer duration of nonarthroplasty treatment. The use of more AAOS AUC evaluated interventions in these patients suggests that the AAOS AUC model may effectively be used to manage symptomatic OA, increasing the time from presentation to knee arthroplasty.

Interestingly, the use of rarely appropriate interventions did not affect TKA timing, as would be expected in a clinically effective nonarthroplasty treatment model. The reasons for rarely appropriate nonsurgical interventions are complex and require further investigation. One possible explanation is that decreased ROM was a marker for mechanical symptoms that necessitated additional intervention in the form of knee arthroscopy, delaying time to TKA.

Limitations

There are several limitations of this study. First, the small sample size (N = 90) requires acknowledgment; however, this limitation reflects the difficulty in following patients for years prior to an operative intervention. Second, the study population consists of veterans using the VA system and may not be reflective of the general population, differing with respect to gender, racial, and socioeconomic factors. Nevertheless, studies examining TKA utilization found, aside from racial and ethnic variability, patient gender and age do not affect arthroplasty utilization rate in the VA system.¹⁷