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Partial knee replacement surgery is safer than total knee replacement, according to a new study. 

According to the study, people who undergo total knee replacement are four times more likely to die in the first month after surgery compared to those who have partial knee replacement. 

The study also noted that patients undergoing total replacement are twice as likely to have a thrombosis, heart attack or deep infection compared to those having partial replacement. Further, the study added that after total knee replacement patients are in hospital longer and the chances of being readmitted or requiring a re-operation during the first year is higher. 

Nearly half of the knees that require replacement, mostly because of severe osteoarthritis can be treated with either partial or total replacements, the study noted. 

'The risks have been assessed in this study, which found that partial knees have fewer complications and deaths; however they do lead to more re-operations. Patients will however be more concerned to avoid death and major complications, such as heart attack or stroke, than re-operations,' David Murray, from the Nuffield Departmental of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Oxford, who led the research, said in a press release. 

'To put the risks in perspective, if 100 patients had a partial knee rather than a total knee replacement there would be one fewer death and three more re-operations in the first four years after surgery.'

The study has been published in The Lancet.