Hey there,
I hope you all had a lovely week. I had a very busy week that included family gatherings, an eight hour track meet, and, of course, my internship. But I can’t complain, I enjoyed each event, and I got to spend a lot of time with my baby cousin, who is almost 11 months old.
At my internship, I continued to look through patient charts and collect data. I have noticed things like nearly every single patient with a TKA infection has hypertension (high blood pressure). I have done some research on hypertension, and found that 64% of men, aged from 65-74, are hypertensive and 69.3% of women, aged 65-74, are hypertensive. Also, 66.7% of men ,aged 75 and older, are hypertensive and 78.5% of women ,aged 75 and older, are hypertensive (http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm). So far, 84% of the patients with a TKA infection are hypertensive. Using this information, doctors can inform patients with hypertension before the surgery, that they have a slightly higher risk of getting an infection. In the future, as I collect more data, I will distinguish which percent of men versus women have hypertension.
I have also noticed a high amount of patients who have diabetes. According to American Diabetes Association, 25.9% of Americans aged 65 and older have diabetes, while 41% of the patients with a TKA infection have diabetes. This shows that people with diabetes have a higher risk of infection.
One thing I wish I had access to was patients who had a total knee arthroplasty surgery, but never got an infection. This way I could collect data and see what percent of patients did have hypertension and/or diabetes, but never got infected. But, unfortunately, this is not an option for me, and it will remain one of the flaws of my project.
In the following weeks I will be sharing more data with you guys! See you then!
Komal Majhail
That is fascinating to see the correlation between hypertension and risk of infection. I am curious what the correlation between hypertension and diabetes is? Could it be possible that having hypertension and diabetes increases the risk of infection even more? That is a bummer that you don't have data about those patients who don't have infections!
ReplyDeleteIts great that you are finding risk factors. This may sound stupid to you but...is it possible the hypertension is caused by the infection?
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear you're finding correlations in the data! It's too bad that you don't have the data on patients who didn't get infections, but what you do have is interesting to hear.
ReplyDeleteIs there any way to reduce risk of infection if the patient is known to have diabetes before the surgery?
ReplyDeleteThe correlation you are seeing between all of these health risks (infections, hypertension, diabetes) is a great way to demonstrate how quickly one condition can lead to another. Surgery is dangerous enough for a healthy person, and it only gets more complicated as a person's health declines.
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