Total knee replacement is one of the most successful procedures in all of medicine. In the vast majority of cases, it enables people to live richer, more active lives free of chronic knee pain. Over time, however, a knee replacement may fail for a variety of reasons. When this occurs, your knee can become painful and swollen. It may also feel stiff or unstable, making it difficult to perform your everyday activities.

Although both procedures have the same goal — to relieve pain and improve function — revision surgery is different than primary total knee replacement. It is a longer, more complex procedure that requires extensive planning, and specialized implants and tools to achieve a good result.

Damage to the bone may make it difficult for the doctor to use standard total knee implants for revision knee replacement. In most cases, he or she will use specialized implants with longer, thicker stems that fit deeper inside the bone for extra support.

In order for a total knee replacement to function properly, an implant must remain firmly attached to the bone. During the initial surgery, the implant was either cemented into the bone or press-fit to allow bone to grow onto the surface of the implant. In either case, the implant was firmly fixed. Over time, however, an implant may loosen from the underlying bone, causing the knee to become painful.

The cause of loosening is not always clear, but high-impact activities, excessive body weight, and wear of the plastic spacer between the two metal components of the implant are all factors that may contribute. Also, patients who are younger when they undergo the initial knee replacement may "outlive" the life expectancy of their artificial knee. For these patients, there is a higher long-term risk that revision surgery will be needed due to loosening or wear.

A primary knee arthroplasty is a very commonly performed procedure that involves a patient undergoing a joint replacement for the first time. Essentially, the difference between this and the revision knee replacement is that you're revising and changing a primary knee replacement to a revised new replacement.

There are certainly other differences from the point of view of the complexity of the procedure. A patient may need a revision knee replacement for many different reasons, including instability, pain, stiffness, infection or loosening.

It's not necessarily the case that someone who's had a primary knee replacement inevitably needs a revision knee replacement. It really depends on several different factors.

The main reason for replacing any arthritic joint with an artificial joint is to stop the bones from rubbing against each other, which is the cause of knee joint pain. The main aim of this Primary Total Knee Replacement Surgery is to help people return to many of their activities with less everyday pain, knee joint pain with greater freedom of movement.

In this implant the femoral component is made of stainless steel and the tibial tray and the insert are together made of polyethylene. The advantage it has is that more poly is available and hence it lasts longer, also cost-wise it is cheaper than the other implants.