From 1975, when the Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register (SKAR) started, until the end of 1997, 57,533 primary arthroplasties and revisions have been registered. Recently, the register underwent a comprehensive validation and update regarding revisions. We now report on general demographic and epidemiological data for the whole period and on the survivorship of arthroplasties performed in Sweden during 1988-1997. During this 10-year period, 41,223 primary knee arthroplasties were performed on 34,877 patients. We found, as in our earlier reports, that survivorship was affected by patient-, time-, implant- and method-related factors but, apart from an overall higher cumulative revision rate, general conclusions reported from the register in recent years appeared to be unaffected.