Total hip replacement is an increasingly popular procedure in the US. The reason is probably in the huge number of baby boomers getting old and getting their hips busted. According to the CDC , in 2009, there were 327,000 total hip replacement surgeries. About 400,000 hip replacements is a yearly average. Women seem to be more inclined to get their hips replaced, but according to the new study, they are also more likely to experience the failure of their new hips, and to need revision procedure.<\/p>\n
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The new study was conducted by the researchers from the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. The researchers reviewed data on 35,140 replacement procedures completed at 46 US hospitals. The average age of the patients was about 66. About 57.5 percents were women.<\/p>\n
Scientists found that the success ratio of this now common procedure is very high: 97.4 percent of all implants survived up to the five year mark used for the study. But, of those procedures that failed, women were 29 percents more likely than men to require repeat surgery during the first three years after they received the implant.<\/p>\n
One of the goals of the study was to study sex-specific risk factors of the hip replacement, because of the important differences in the anatomy between women and men and women. Another goal was to find out which type of the device was most likely to fail.<\/p>\n
The researchers discovered that more women than men got the smaller, 28 mm femoral heads, while more men received larger femoral heads and metal on metal-bearing devices. But, the conclusion was that the number of participants in the study was not big enough and the period of time was too short to make any conclusion about the type of the device or procedure which is considered more risky than others. As a consequence, the researches could not offer any recommendation to physicians who are making the decision about which type or model of artificial hip to use.<\/p>\n