Is Footedness Driving Right Lower Extremity Arthroplasty Becoming Commoner Than Left Lower Extremity Arthroplasty?

The question arises whether footedness transforms into asymmetrical incidence of wear and tear within lower extremity joints. After obtaining institutional review board approval for exempt research, the author manually counted the number of patients who underwent right or left or bilateral, hip or knee, primary or revision arthroplasty over a five-year period (2016-2020) at a university-affiliated hospital in the United States. Overall, right lower extremity arthroplasty was significantly commoner than left lower extremity arthroplasty (P=0.002). Individually, only right primary hip arthroplasty (P=0.033) and right revision knee arthroplasty (P=0.041) were significantly commoner procedures than their left counterparts. These results should set up the stage for future investigations into footedness retrospectively and prospectively to rule out if commoner right footedness in itself is driving this asymmetrical incidence of lower extremity arthroplasty or whether automatic transmission vehicular driving is independently contributing to this asymmetrical incidence.