Matthew Miller's New Gig; Treating the Ischemic Orthopedic Patient; 'Dosing' Exercise for OA Hips

Orthopedics This Week—November 7, 2017

Orthopedics This Week featured a study by HSS anesthesiologist Michael K. Urban, MD, PhD, which found that patients with cardiac conditions had a higher incidence of heart complications following orthopedic surgery.

Dr. Urban told OTW, "a significant percentage of patients who require arthroplasty or spine surgery have multiple medical co-morbidities, including ischemic heart disease. We were interested in assessing the incidence of postoperative ischemia and cardiac complications in our orthopedic population. We utilized a recently installed hospital electronic ordering system to identify every patient who had troponins ordered (a marker for myocardial ischemia)."

"The incidence of myocardial ischemia in our at-risk patients was higher than I expected (8.7%), but the incidence of myocardial infarctions and serious cardiac complications was low (<2%). More patients than we expect are at risk for cardiac complications, but I think with the perioperative care provided at HSS most of these ischemic episodes do not progress to serious complications," he added.

Read the full article at ryortho.com [subscription required].