Hip Joint Replacement Adds Years to Life

Want to live a longer life? Have hip joint replacement surgery.

A study in Sweden found that hip replacement surgery not only improved the quality of life but also increased life expectancy.

The study (“Do Patients Live Longer After THA and Is the Relative Survival Diagnosis-specific?”) appeared in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, a publication of The Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons in Sweden.

A decade after surgery, doctors found that patients who had total hip arthroplasty (THA) had a slightly improved survival rate as compared to the general population. This is according to the study by Peter Cnudde, M.D., of the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register, Gothenburg, and colleagues. Cnudde said, “Our study suggests that hip replacement can add years to life as well as adding ‘life to years’, increasing the chances of longer survival as well as improving the quality of life.”

The researchers analyzed postoperative survival rates in nearly 132,000 patients who underwent a THA in Sweden from 1999 to 2012. The average age of the patients at the time of their hip replacement was 68 years. During a median follow-up of 5.6 years, about 16.5% of the patients had died.

Survival after THA was longer than the researchers had expected—especially when compared to people of similar age and sex in the Swedish general population. In the first year, survival was 1% better in the THA patients than in the matched population.

The researchers reported that “the difference increased to three per cent at five years, then decreased to two per cent at 10 years. By 12 years, survival was no longer different between the two groups.”

The survival difference was significant mainly among patients diagnosed with primary osteoarthritis. This condition, reflecting age-related “wear and tear”, accounted for 91% of patients undergoing THA. In patients with certain other diagnoses, including osteonecrosis, inflammatory arthritis, and “secondary” osteoarthritis due to other health conditions or risk factors, survival after THA was lower compared to the general population.

Not surprisingly, patients with more accompanying medical conditions had lower survival after THA. Lower education and single marital status were also associated with lower survival.