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Osteoarthritis surgery is only advised when the patient is not responsive to non-surgical treatments and/or the use of the joints is compromised.

There is no cure for this ailment, but surgeries are last resorts to relieving pain and increasing the use of the affected area. The most common osteoarthritis surgeries are as follows

• Arthroplasty – replacing affected joints with artificial ones. The artificial joints are made of high-grade plastic, metal alloys or polymer. This procedure depends on the patient’s age, sex, level of day to day activities and medical conditions.
• Osteotomy – repositioning of bones to provide more space for adjoining bones to move.
• Joint resurfacing – smoothing out and replacement of only the arthritic surface of the joint.
• Arthrodesis – surgical fusion of the bones

Depending on the location and severity of the damaged area, either one of the above procedures are used. The most widely used procedure is Arthroplasty for osteoarthritis surgeries. For example, thumb surgery for osteoarthritis may require Arthroplasty, Osteotomy, Arthrodesis or the Trapeziectomy procedure, which is the removal of the small trapezium bone that is adjacent to the thumb bone to provide more space for the adjoining bones to move.

The other four commonly affected joint areas that require the Arthroplasty procedure are the knees, shoulders, foot and the neck.

Variations of this procedure are used depending on the location of the joint area. For osteoarthritis knee surgery, either partial knee replacement, rotating knee replacements, gender specific knee replacements or custom knee replacements are used.

Shoulder Hemiarthroplasty or Total Shoulder Arthroplasty may be required in a shoulder osteoarthritis surgery. Shoulder Hemiarthroplasty is where only the humeral joint in the shoulder is replaced by an artificial one and Total Shoulder Arthroplasty is where multiple parts of the shoulder are replaced with artificial ones.

Osteoarthritis foot surgery may require Arthroplasty or a procedure called Arthroscopic Debridement, which involves cleaning of the affected joint area of spurs, inflamed tissues and/or foreign tissues with the help of small surgical tools attached to an arthrocope

Corepectomy, Laminectomy or Laminoplasty are procedures used in osteoarthritis neck surgery. Corepectomy involves removal of herniated disk or disks and fills the gap with a bone graft or a metal implant. Laminectomy is the removal of the rear part of the bone situated above the spinal cord while laminoplasty is the rearranging and cutting of vertebrae pieces so that the spinal cord can have more room.

References

• http://www.arthritisaustralia.com.au/images/stories/documents/booklets/2011_updates/Taking_control_of_your_Ostoarthritis_booklet.pdf
• http://www.niams.nih.gov/health_info/osteoarthritis/default.asp