Total hip replacement surgery (THR) is one of the most common surgeries performed in modern orthopedics, and in most cases offers a significant improvement in the quality of the patient's life. However, after some time, wear and osteolysis do appear, which leads to the need for revision surgery. With the indication being widened to a more young and active population, the need for extending the lifespan of the prosthesis is mandatory. Although several bearing surfaces have been studied over the years, and a lot of couplings are in use, the choice of the right combination of materials is still controversial. Biotribology tries to answer some of the current questions regarding the best bearing surface to use, being the branch of science and technology that studies friction, wear, and lubrication of different materials in the human body. In the present day, a large number of materials are in use for total hip replacement, but choosing the right combination of materials is still controversial, and is being done on one hand by the surgeon’s experience and on the other hand by the age and activity of the patient. The objective of this review is to try to present the main advantages and disadvantages of different materials and try to answer the most difficult question of them all: What is the right material to use for THR-bearing surfaces?
Background: As total hip replacement cases increase year after year, registry-wide data becomes increasingly important in order to assess pathology distribution, reimbursement efficiency as well as physician performance. In order to assess all these factors patient evolution needs to be documented after surgery as well, but the main impediment to doing this is losing patients to follow-up. For this reason, the present study aims to perform a descriptive analysis of the hospital’s internal registry data as well as to determine what percentage of patients can be expected to return to follow-up after total hip replacement. Methods: A query of the hospital’s internal registry data in the last years was performed. Patient demographics, county distribution as well as ICD-10 code usage were documented. Data standardization was performed to determine the probability and cumulative distribution of the patient’s age. The chi2 test of independence was used to assess whether there is a correlation between the patient’s gender and ICD-10 codes. Pot hoc power analysis was performed to assess the accuracy of correlation analysis. Results: Only 29.6% of the patients undergoing total hip replacement are from the county within which the hospital is located. 25% of the patients were under 60 years old. Conclusions: Current registry data reveals that most patients undergoing total hip replacement are around 67.5 ± 11 years old, suffer from unilateral or bilateral primary or secondary hip osteoarthritis and only 29.6% of them are likely to return to follow-up.
