Burn E, et al. - Researchers determined the lifetime risk of knee and hip replacement among patients who had a newly recorded GP diagnosis of knee or hip osteoarthritis. In addition, they examined the influence of patient characteristics on this risk. They included 48,311 individuals with knee osteoarthritis (of these, 2,561 had undergone knee replacement) and 15,105 individuals with hip osteoarthritis (of these, 1,247 had undergone hip replacement). According to findings, following an osteoarthritis diagnosis, knee and hip replacement may not inevitable. The patients showed average lifetime risks of less than one-third and one-sixth, respectively. Body mass index was the most notable patient characteristic to influence lifetime risks.