Safety Study of High-dose Methylprednisolone in Fast-track Total Knee Arthroplasty

It has been shown that a single high dose of steroid before surgery may reduce pain the first 48 hours after insertion of a new joint in the knee, a so called \"total knee arthroplasty\" (TKA). Consequently, this has been introduced as standard treatment of most patients at several Danish orthopedic departments. Although there are some concerns about the possibility of increased risk of prosthesis infections, this has not been proved in previous studies. However the studies are few, have limited number of patients and are not done using a standardized perioperative set-up. This study is made to monitor the safety of a single high dose steroid injection before TKA, with regards to prosthesis infection within one year of surgery. We hypothesize that there will be no increase in infections in patients receiving steroid injection before TKA compared to a historical cohort of patents who did not receive a steroid injection before their TKA.