Surgeon's expectations do not predict the outcome of a total knee arthroplasty.

Introduction: It is fascinating for both the patient and the surgeon to predict the outcome of a TKA at an early stage. Satisfaction after TKA is primarily determined by the preoperative expectations of the patient. The purpose of this study was to investigate if the peri-operative expectations of the surgeon predicted the outcome of a TKA.

Patients And Methods: A prospective study of 53 primary TKAs was performed. Preoperatively, the surgeon described the assessment of the difficulty of the TKA on a VAS. Immediately postoperative, the surgeon gave his satisfaction VAS about the procedure. After 1 year the surgeon's satisfaction VAS, the patient's satisfaction VAS and the KSCRS were determined.

Results: The Spearman's correlation coefficients between the preoperative difficulty assessment, the immediate postoperative satisfaction and the outcome measurements after 1 year were all very poor (-0.01 to 0.23).

Conclusions: The outcome of a TKA depends on multiple factors. Both the surgeon's preoperative assessment of the difficulty and the surgeon's immediate postoperative satisfaction do not independently predict the outcome of a TKA.