Urinary neopterin and total neopterin measurements allow monitoring of oxidative stress and inflammation levels of knee and hip arthroplasty patients.

Knee and hip arthroplasty are common surgeries within an aging population. Some data has suggested that knee arthroplasty is more traumatic to the body than hip arthroplasty due to the increased complexity and load bearing nature of the joint. Here, we compare the stress of the two surgeries by measuring urinary neopterin and total neopterin as biomarkers of oxidative stress and inflammation.

Knee replacement surgery significantly elevates the urinary inflammatory biomarkers neopterin and 7,8-dihydroneopterin.

Context: Knee arthroplasty surgery is significant trauma, leading to an activated immune system causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Many current biomarkers are invasive, costly, and often slow to analyse, limiting their use for rapid inflammatory measurements.

Objectives: We have examined the use of urinary neopterin and total neopterin in knee arthroplasty patients to non-invasively measure oxidative stress and inflammation from immune system activation.

The effect of trampoline parks on presentations to the Christchurch Emergency Department.

Aims: To analyse trampoline-related injuries suffered after the opening of two new trampoline parks in Christchurch.

Methods: Data was collected from three 90-day periods. All trampoline-related injuries were collected from electronic documentation and coding.

Squeaking in ceramic-on-ceramic hips: No evidence of contribution from the trunnion morse taper.

Squeaking in ceramic-on-ceramic (CoC) total hip arthroplasty (THA) was investigated with an acoustic monitoring device to distinguish between squeaking emanating from the trunnion morse taper (TMT) connection versus the articular surface. 82 patients with implant problems scheduled for revision were selected and acoustic emissions (AE) with simple movements monitored. Five of these patients with CoC implants underwent surgery and their retrieved implant components were analyzed in vitro.