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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Jan 18, 2026; 17(1): 112625
Published online Jan 18, 2026. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v17.i1.112625
Published online Jan 18, 2026. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v17.i1.112625
Return to farming after orthopedic surgery: A systematic review
Eva Lehtonen, Kaley Beall, Sarav S Shah, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, New England Baptist Hospital, Boston, MA 02120, United States
Ruja Kambli, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, United States
Krishna Mandalia, Department of General Surgery, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA 90502, United States
Author contributions: Lehtonen E contributed to data curation; Lehtonen E and Kambli R performed the literature search, formal analysis and drafting of the manuscript; Lehtonen E, Mandalia K, Beall K, and Shah SS writing and editing of the manuscript; Lehtonen E and Shah SS conceptualized the study; Kambli R contributed to data extraction; Mandalia K assisted with data analysis; Beall K assisted with project administration; Shah S supervised the study, and served as guarantor of the work. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sarav S Shah, MD, Department of Orthopedics, New England Baptist Hospital, 125 Parker Hill Ave, Boston, MA 02120, United States. saravshah1@gmail.com
Received: August 4, 2025
Revised: September 12, 2025
Accepted: November 21, 2025
Published online: January 18, 2026
Processing time: 160 Days and 17.8 Hours
Revised: September 12, 2025
Accepted: November 21, 2025
Published online: January 18, 2026
Processing time: 160 Days and 17.8 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This systematic review evaluates return to work outcomes among farmers and heavy laborers following orthopedic surgeries of the hip, knee, and shoulder. The study identifies a high return to work rate after shoulder procedures, especially anatomic total shoulder arthroplasty, and reveals a significant lack of data for hip and knee surgeries in rural labor-intensive populations. These findings highlight a critical gap in orthopedic outcomes research and underscore the need for targeted studies to inform surgical decision-making and postoperative rehabilitation in physically demanding occupations.