Purpose : The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of wearing elastic stockings for preventing deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) after artificial leg joint replacement.
Subjects and Methods : Eighty-nine cases of total hip arthroplasty (THA) and 115 cases of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) conducted at the authors' hospital between July 2006 and October 2007, and for which data were available, were included in the study. The THA group comprised 79 females and 10 males, and the TKA group comprised 103 females and 12 males. The average age of the THA group was 68.4 (43-85) yr, and that of the TKA group was 74.0 (42-89) yr, at the time of surgery.
One week after surgery, screening tests were conducted using leg vein echography, to check whether or not DVT had occurred. In addition, the subjects were classified into a “no-stockings group” composed of patients who did not wear any elastic stockings after surgery, and a “stockings group” composed of patients who wore stockings for two weeks after surgery, and the incidences of DVT in the two groups were compared and evaluated.
Results : The incidence of DVT in the THA group as a whole after surgery was 10 out of 89 cases (11.2%), and that in the TKA group as a whole was 5 out of 115 cases (4.3%).
The DVT incidence in the THA group after surgery was 5 out of 38 cases (13.2%) for the no-stockings group, and 5 out of 51 cases (9.8%) for the stockings group. On the other hand, the DVT incidence in the TKA group after surgery was 4 out of 61 cases (6.6%) for the no-stockings group, and 1 out of 54 cases (1.9%) for the stockings group.
For statistical analysis, the χ2 test was conducted, assuming that the significance level was 5. As a result, there was no significant difference in DVT incidence between the no-stockings group and the stockings group for both THA group and TKA. However, when patients wore stockings, the incidence of DVT decreased from 13.2% to 9.8% in the THA group, and from 6.6% to 1.9% in the TKA group.
Discussion and Summary : For both the THA and TKA groups, the wearing of stockings had no statistically significant effect on post-surgical DVT incidence, but did reduce the incidence of DVT to some degree especially in the TKA group.
