Total knee and hip replacement surgeries may temporarily increase a patient’s risk of myocardial infarction during the period immediately after the procedure, researchers said.
The effect was greatest during the 6 weeks following total hip replacement surgery among patients aged 80 and older, who faced a 25.3% increased risk of suffering acute myocardial infarction, according to the study.
The risk was more pronounced in female patients of all ages, for which researchers reported a 21.7% heart attack risk increase compared with 12.8% for male patients.
Knee surgeries led to less dramatic, but still significant, increases. Heart attack risks jumped 11.2% following knee surgery for patients over 80, 9.5% among women of all ages and 7.9% for men of all ages.
The research, conducted through the Utrecht University in the Netherlands and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is the latest in a string of studies suggesting that physicians may need to take a stronger role in monitoring heart health in patients following surgery, TheHeart.org reported.
"It is important for physicians caring for patients in the perioperative period to recognize the potential for cardiac morbidity and mortality and then appropriately use the armamentarium of medical therapies we now have to reduce cardiac risk, prevent perioperative MIs, and prevent cardiac death," California physician Dr. Arthur Wallace, who was not involved with the study, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
Researchers conducted their retrospective study using data from Danish from national registries, including more than 95,000 patients, who had total hip or knee surgeries between 1998 and 2007.