Hip Resurfacing Technique

By Renee Allen - Reporter/Anchor CBS/NBC

October 10 2007

What happens when someone is too young to have a hip replacement but too old to just put up with it? Well, there’s something called hip resurfacing. And there are two physicians in Central Louisiana who were among the first to be trained on how to do it.
NewsChannel 5’s Renee Allen introduces a patient who’s trying it on for size.

Billy Weatherford is 53 years old soon to be a retired fireman. He lives an active life even with the pain from the arthritis in his hip.

“There are some days I’ll be able to work for an hour, then take a break. I’ll take something for the pain and then in an hour I get up again and go a couple more hours.”

Weatherford was told he would need hip replacement surgery. Doctors told him it would be best to wait.

“He told me then I was too young for total hip. Years down the road you’re going to have need a total hip. As long as we can manage the pain we’ll wait until then.”

But then his doctor, Dr. David Pope, told him about an alternative for younger patients. It’s called Birmingham Hip Resurfacing (BHR). Dr. Pope and Dr. Jeffery Garrison of Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine located in Alexandria are among the first surgeons in the United States trained in this bone conserving technique.

“Younger patients are going to go hard on their hip. So you put a traditional replacement in they feel better they’re going to go hard on it.”

Hip resurfacing simply shaves and caps a few centimeters of bone within the joint. It has the potential to last longer than traditional hip implants and conserves bone stock that otherwise would have been lost.

“If this hip has to be revised, which is probably a good chance if it’s done primarily in a younger patient in the first place, it will actually make that revision somewhat easier to do because you preserve bone in the femur.”

Dr. Pope adds that hip resurfacing is a more stable hip and an ideal procedure for patients under age 60 who live an active lifestyle.