Elizabeth Hofheinz, M.P.H., M.Ed. • Sun, June 8th, 2014
5,000 Patient Anterior Hip Study Results Announced
Over 5,000 patients and three high volume orthopedic centers may just convince some surgeons to take a chance on anterior approach hip replacement. Steven Barnett, M.D. of the Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Irvine, California, tells OTW, “Despite adoption of anterior hip surgery, there has not been a great deal of clinical research in this area as compared to other approaches. We set out to look at patients from the day of surgery until 90 days postop and examine the safety of this approach. Our retrospective chart review included 5,000 patients from three centers: The Hoag Orthopedic Institute (along with Dr. Robert Gorab and Dr. Jay Patel), St. John’s Health Center (where we worked with Joel Matta, M.D.), and The Anderson Orthopaedic Clinic (where we worked with William Hamilton, M.D.).”
“We found an overall complication rate of 3.28%, which is equal to if not lower than that of other approaches. If you break that number down, the rate of medical complications was 1.36%; and surgical complication rate was 1.9% (hematomas, infection, deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism, intraoperative fractures, dislocations). The dislocation rate for the entire cohort was 0.23%. These are short term results, so we can’t comment on functional comparisons of patients down the road. We can say, however, that using an anterior approach to hip replacement is safe and has a reasonable complication rate.”
