Follow-up after Hip Replacement

/in , /by

Once implanted, joint replacements should be periodically followed-up.  This follow-up includes taking x-rays to assess the implants.  The minimum recommended follow-up for implants with a known good track record involves review at 1 year and then at 5 year intervals.  Personally we believe that after 15 years closer follow-up is a good idea with review every 2 years as problems can begin to appear around this time in some cases.

It has been suggested that this follow-up could be performed by general practitioners and Mr Sood and his team investigated this and published a paper on this topic.  GP’s rely on reports of x-rays taken in local hospitals and do not see the x-rays themselves.  We found that such reports did not always spot problems with the replacements and so potential problems could be inadvertently missed.  We concluded that follow-up of joint replacements should only be performed by specialists, ideally hip surgeons but also possibly by other suitably trained staff.

 

Should primary care physicians perform routine long-term Follow-up of total hip arthroplasty patients?  MC Nogaro, M Wijeratna, M Sood.  Journal of Arthroscopy & Joint Surgery 1 (2014) 27-31

Dislocating Hip Replacements Cured

/in , /by

Mr Sood and his team presented work at The annual Meeting of the British Hip Society in Exeter on the difficult problem of dislocating hip replacements.  Mr Sood specialises in re-do hip replacements and is often referred patients who are suffering repeated hip dislocations.  This is a distressing complication that can occur soon after a hip replacement or some years later.  Analysis of the results of Mr Sood’s series showed that in 95% of cases a single procedure prevented dislocations.  In one case a further procedure was required to prevent further dislocations.

These results are amongst the best reported for this sort of surgery but are only achievable with meticulous assessment and the use of a variety of different implants to achieve hip stability.

Leg-length in Hip Replacement

/in , /by

Mr Sood and his team presented work at the European Hip Society in Stockholm on the topic of how to make sure that patients leg length is restored correctly after total hip replacement.  After hip replacement the operated leg can be lengthened and patients can find this difficult.  Shortening can also occur but this is less common.

We use a special protocol during every hip replacement that we perform to monitor leg-length closely to ensure that leg-length problems do not arise.  We looked at 100 consecutive patients managed in this way and found that the results that we achieved were amongst the best reported results in the published literature for leg-length and offset.

 

Soft-tissue balancing in Total Hip Arthroplasty: Results in 100 consecutive patients

M Sood, A Memarzadeh and D Arvinte. 11th European Hip Society Congress Stockholm 2014