A research team spearheaded by the Mayo Clinic has revealed to discover a national trend among younger, more diverse patients having total knee replacement surgery.

The findings were reportedly uncovered today at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (http://www.aaos.org/education/anmeet/anmeet.asp) in New Orleans.

The study made a comparison of the data accumulated from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Hospital Discharge Survey (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhds.htm) for 1990-1994 and 2002-2006 for patients having total knee replacements, known as total knee arthroplasty in medical jargon.

"Total knee replacements aren't going away any time soon. We're going to be seeing younger patients undergoing this procedure, but we may also see more failures and more revisions, and physicians and medical facilities need to prepare for that," Michele D'Apuzzo cited.

The study researchers revealed that the average age of total knee replacement patients registered a fall by two years (from 70 years to 68 years) between the two time periods and that the proportion of minorities roused by 1.4 percent (from 8 percent to 9.4 percent).

In addition, the study also uncovered that Medicare is paying less for total knee replacements, and the length of hospital stays decreased as well.