<p>Same-day bilateral knee replacement surgery is safe for select patients with rheumatoid arthritis, researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery in New York have found.</p><p>Generally, patients with an inflammatory systemic disease such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are sicker than patients with the degenerative condition osteoarthritis (OA), says senior study author Mark Figgie, M.D., chief of the Surgical Arthritis Service at Hospital for Special Surgery, and the hospital's first Allan E. Inglis, MD, Chair in Surgical Arthritis.</p>