Doctors

Careful selection can help patients regain function and have a satisfactory quality of life.

 

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August 2007

 

Better surgical techniques and patient selection will enable total joint surgeons to achieve more reproducible results in the young arthritic patient with hip resurfacing implants, according to Paul E. Beaulé, MD, FRCSC.

 

By mastering the technique and selecting the right patients for this procedure, they can mitigate the 15% to 30% failure rates seen with some earlier designs of hip resurfacing prostheses, he said.

 

But, Beaulé, a proponent of resurfacing arthroplasty to treat hip arthritis in appropriate patients, also expects the type and design of fixation to be critical to long-term success with today’s resurfacing components. Deep cement penetration may have contributed to past failures, he said.