Assessing Risks of Bunion Surgery

It’s an elective procedure, but for some people, very necessary. But will bunion surgery be successful or not? How can practitioners advise their patients? Surgeons can fuse bones that have become misaligned using a modified Lapidus procedure. Unfortunately, when the bones do not fuse—creating a nonunion—more pain and dysfunction can occur, and more surgery may be needed. This nonunion happens in about 10% of surgeries.

After examining the records of over 200 patients who underwent the Lapidus procedure, and their outcomes, researchers determined 3 major risk factors for a nonunion: prior bunion surgery, higher BMI, and the severity of the deformity. Study leader Matthew J. Johnson, DPM, stated, “we can educate patients who may have higher risk of an unsuccessful outcome for this operation.” He is an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at UT Southwestern, where the research took place.

 

Access the journal article.

Read the press release.

Other Categories:

• pain management

• postsurgical pain management

• risk assessment

• risk mitigation

• Surgery