Role of Diabetes Type in Perioperative Outcomes After Hip and Knee Arthroplasty in the United States

The objective of this study was to determine whether the type of diabetes mellitus (DM) affected the incidence of immediate perioperative complications following joint replacement. From 1988 to 2003, the Nationwide Inpatient Sample recognized 65,769 patients with DM who underwent total hip and knee arthroplasty in the United States. Bivariate and multivariate analyses compared patients with type 1 (n = 8728) and type 2 (n = 57,041) DM regarding common perioperative complications, mortality, and hospital course alterations. Type 1 DM patients had increased length of stays and inflation-adjusted costs after surgery (p < .001). Type 1 patients also had significant increases in the incidence of myocardial infarction, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, postoperative hemorrhage, wound infection, and death (p < .02). Perhaps because of the differences in the duration of disease and their underlying pathologies, patients with type 1 diabetes carry more significant overall perioperative risks and require more health care resources compared with patients with type 2 diabetes following hip and knee arthroplasty.