Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic & Related Surgery
Original ArticleTrends in the Surgical Treatment of Articular Cartilage Lesions in the United States: An Analysis of a Large Private-Payer Database Over a Period of 8 Years
Section snippets
Methods
We performed a retrospective review of a large private-payer medical record database within the PearlDiver database. The PearlDiver database is a publicly available, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act–compliant national database compiled from a collection of private insurer records, with UnitedHealth Group representing the largest contributing individual health plan. The database has more than 2 billion individual patient records and contains Current Procedural Terminology
Results
We analyzed 198,876,000 patients' charts. There were 1,959,007 patients (0.99%) who underwent a surgical procedure addressing a cartilage defect in the knee. The mean annual incidence was 90 surgeries per 10,000 patients. The total number of patients analyzed in the database, by year, is listed in Table 2. There was no significant change in the number of patients in the database over the study timeframe (P = .140). The estimated number of procedures performed annually, based on 2000 and 2010 US
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to quantify the number of articular cartilage surgical techniques performed in the knee in the United States over the past 8 years using a large private-payer database. The study's key finding is that a large number of patients are undergoing arthroscopic cartilage surgery of the knee each year in the United States and the number of cartilage surgical techniques per year is significantly increasing, at an annual incidence increase of 5%. A mean incidence of 90
Conclusions
Articular cartilage surgical procedures in the knee are common in the United States, with an annual incidence growth of 5%. Surgical techniques aimed at palliation are more common than cartilage repair and restoration techniques regardless of age, sex, or region.
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The authors report the following potential conflict of interest or source of funding: F.M., R.F., and H.W. have received support from the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation. B.B. has received support from Arthrex, Linvatec, Smith & Nephew, ConMed Linvatec, and Ossur. B.C. has received support from Zimmer, Arthrex, Carticept, Biomimmetic, Allosource, DePuy, Regentis, Smith & Nephew, DJ Ortho, Johnson & Johnson, Genzyme, ConMed Linvatec, and Ossur.