CORR Insights^®: Is Model-based Radiostereometric Analysis Suitable for Clinical Trials of a Cementless Tapered Wedge Femoral Stem?

Excerpt

As populations increase in size, and as total hip arthroplasty is increasingly performed in younger patients, the burden on healthcare systems grows. Implant survivorship beyond two decades is becoming an imperative. Unfortunately, many hip implants have been introduced—often as minor modifications of a successful design—only to fail catastrophically. Joint registries pioneered by the Scandinavian countries are powerful tools with which to compare implants in the long-term, but detection of underperforming implants sooner remains difficult because registries generally have focused on the endpoint of revision, rather than on signs of failure that may be evident earlier on. By the time it is apparent that an implant does not have acceptable long-term survival, many thousands, if not tens of thousands, have been implanted. …