Study: Hip Replacement Benefits Last

Nov. 29, 2007 -- Hip replacement may have long-term benefits.  That's according to new British and Dutch hip replacement studies.

The British study included 282 adults aged 60 and older who got a hip replacement because of osteoarthritis.

Before hip replacement, the patients rated how well their hip worked. They repeated their ratings eight years after hip replacement.

The patients' hip function ratings were better eight years after hip replacement than before hip replacement.

Those findings come from researchers including Janet Cushnaghan, MSc, of England's University of Southampton.

The Dutch study deals with the traits that predicted hip replacement surgery in 224 people aged 50 and older with hip pain.

The patients rated their hip pain, range of motion in their hip, and got checkups and X-rays. They were free to get hip replacement whenever they wanted to -- or not at all.

Over the next six years, 22% of the patients got a hip replacement.

Hip replacement was more common in older patients (those who were at least 60) and in people with worse hip pain and more limited range of hip motion.

So say Annet Lievenese, MD, PhD, and colleagues at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Both studies appear in the Dec. 15 edition of Arthritis & Rheumatism.