As per a recent study published in ‘Knee Surgery and Related Research’, hypoalbuminemia and obesity class II can be used as reliable biomarkers to predict peri-prosthetic joint infection following elective total knee arthroplasty (TKA), while low TLC, overweight, and obesity class I did not increase the risk of such issues.

This study by Sheryl Lok-Chi Man et al. identified the biomarkers of malnutrition in patients undertaking elective TKA that may further give way to adverse in-hospital postoperative complications.

All in all, 624 patients who undertook elective TKA were assessed. To study the associated complications, potential biomarkers of preoperative malnutrition, comprising total lymphocyte count (TLC < 1500 cells/mm3), hypoalbuminemia (serum albumin < 3.5 g/dL), and BMI, were examined. As a result, obesity class I, low TLC, hypoalbuminemia, overweight and obesity class II was observed in 44.5%, 33.4%, 26.9%, 14.8% and 2.72% patients, correspondingly. Patients with hypoalbuminemia or being in obesity class II (BMI ≥ 30.0 kg/m2) with gouty arthritis were most likely to have peri-prosthetic joint infection considering the logistic regression analysis.