Abstract
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown that COVID-19 diagnosis increases rates of perioperative infection, readmission, and other complications following surgery. However, the effect of the COVID vaccine in such patients is unknown. We hypothesized that of the patients with COVID diagnosis, vaccinated patients with COVID-19 diagnosis would have lower rates of adverse complications compared to unvaccinated patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty (TJA). METHODS: Using a national database registry, patients aged less than 85 years undergoing elective primary total knee or total hip arthroplasty with at least 90 days of follow-up were included during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic from April 2020-April 2021. Patients were included in the COVID-19 cohort if they had a diagnosis on the day of surgery or within 30 days prior to surgery. Patients with a history of malignancy, joint injection, femoral neck fractures, tibial fractures, and those undergoing revision arthroplasty were excluded from the study. All comparisons were performed using multivariate logistic regression with significance set at P < .05. Odds ratio and 95% confidence interval were reported for all comparisons. RESULTS: There were a total of 1280 patients with COVID-19 diagnosis matched with 3831 patients without COVID-19 diagnosis. Patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis were at an increased risk of pneumonia, acute kidney injury, urinary tract infection, and readmission following TJA compared to patients without COVID-19 diagnosis. However, there were no differences in any complications assessed between vaccinated patients and unvaccinated patients with COVID-19 diagnosis following TJA. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms that patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis in the 30 days prior to TJA, whether vaccinated or not, have increased risks of medical complications and hospital utilization. However, this study demonstrates that vaccination status does not appear to be associated with the incidence of adverse postoperative events in patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis prior to TJA.