Blood loss after intraarticular and intravenous tranexamic acid in total knee arthroplasty

Objective: To compare postoperative blood loss after intravenous and intraarticular tranexamic acid injection in patients of bilateral total knee arthroplasty. Method: This comparative randomised study was conducted at Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital, Lahore, between July 2015 and January 2016, and comprised all patients admitted for bilateral total knee replacement. Patients were randomly divided into two equal groups. Group-A received intraarticular while Group-B received intravenous injection of 1.5 gmtranexamic acid. All data was analysed using SPSS 17. Results: The total 140 patients were divided into two equal groups of 70(50%) each. In Group-A there were 32(45.7%) males and 38(54.3%) females, while in Group-B, there were 28(40%) males and 42(60%) females. The mean ages were 64.39 +/- 9.07 years in Group-A and 63.30 +/- 9.51 years in Group B. Blood loss in Group-A was significantly lower than Group-B (p=0.01). Conclusion: Intraarticular administration of tranexamic acid was more effective than intravenous administration in terms of reducing blood loss.