1. Introduction
Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is associated with significant postoperative blood loss for
which blood transfusion might be necessary. The role of wound drainage is controversial.
The use of drainage was believed to be effective in decreasing hematoma formation
(Drinkwater and Neil 1995; Holt et al. 1997; Martin et al. 2004), which has been theoretically
thought to decrease postoperative pain, swelling, and incidence of infection(Kim et al. 1998).
However, a closed suction drainage system inevitably increases bleeding because the
tamponade effect of a closed and undrained wound is eliminated. Though some studies
have shown that drainage after TKA is not necessary(Adalberth et al. 1998; Niskanen et al.
2000; Esler et al. 2003; Parker et al. 2004; Jones et al. 2007), it is still widely used by
orthopedic surgeons(Canty et al. 2003).
Surgeons who routinely drain total knee replacements may also use adjunctive measures
such as autologous blood transfusion, use of fibrin tissue adhesive, compression bandaging
and local ice packing(Gibbons et al. 2001; Kullenberg et al. 2006; Radkowski et al. 2007) to
reduce the excessive blood loss from the drain. Recently, drain clamping has received
increasing attention. Since most of the blood loss in TKA occurs during the first few
postoperative hours (37% in 2 hours and 55% in 4 hours)(Jou IM 1993; Senthil Kumar et al.
2005), it seems reasonable to clamp the drain tube in the first few hours after TKA to
temporarily create a tamponade effect for bleeding control. Various methods of clamping
drain have been reported in the literature. However, no consensus has been achieved to
date.
To clarify the role of drainage system after total knee arthroplasty, we conduct a review
process in the present project. A comprehensive search was carried out and the articles
regarding the drainage after surgery were reviewed. This review article focused on:
1. Effectiveness of postoperative drainage in TKA.
2. Safety and complications of postoperative drainage in TKA.
3. Effect of temporary drain clamping.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the pros and cons in using the drainage system after
total knee arthroplasty and to provide practical information for orthopedic surgeons and
medical care givers.
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2. Search of literature
Our review team completed the search of electronic databases, including the Cochrane
Central Register of Controlled Trials (2010), PubMed Medline (1966 to May 2011), and
Embase (1980 to May 2011). We used the following search terms and Boolean operators:
(drain OR drainage) AND (knee OR arthroplasty OR joint replacement). We also searched
the reference lists of the relevant articles for any further associated studies. The criteria for
inclusion in our study were: 1) reports dealing with patients undergoing primary TKA, 2)
studies about postoperative drainage. After reviewing the titles and abstracts of the studies,
we then determined if the study was appropriate for retrieval. These retrieved articles were
reviewed by our review team. A consensus about the content of this review article was
reached through out series of discussion.