Trends in the use of ankle arthrodesis and total ankle replacements in Australia over the past 20 years

End stage ankle osteoarthritis (OA) is debilitating. Surgical management consists of either ankle arthrodesis (AA) or a total ankle replacement (TAR). The purpose of this study is to assess the trends in operative intervention for end stage ankle OA in an Australian population. This is a retrospective epidemiological study of 15,046 surgeries. Data were collected from publicly available national registries including the Australian Medicare Database and Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registrar from 2001 to 2020. There was a significant increase in all ankle surgeries performed across the period of interest. AA remained the more commonly performed procedure throughout the course of the study (11,946 cases, 79.4