It has been shown that a single high dose of steroid before surgery may reduce pain the first 48 hours after insertion of a new joint in the knee, a so called "total knee arthroplasty" (TKA). Consequently, this has been introduced as standard treatment of most patients at several Danish orthopedic departments. Although there are some concerns about the possibility of increased risk of prosthesis infections, this has not been proved in previous studies. However the studies are few, have limited number of patients and are not done using a standardized perioperative set-up.