Influence of sex on surgical time in primary total knee arthroplasty.

Background: Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is widely recognized as an effective procedure for treatment of knee arthritis. However, there have been documented differences between men and women with respect to anatomic variability, timing of access to surgical care and surgical outcomes. We examined the influence of sex on the technical difficulty of TKA using a tourniquet and overall surgical time as a surrogate for complexity of exposure, soft-tissue balancing and implantation.