Two Year Clinical Outcomes of Total Hip Arthroplasty Are Not Dependent on Femoral Head Composition

BackgroundAssessment of clinical outcomes and patient quality of life after total hip arthroplasty continues to grow in importance with the focus on how bearing surfaces affect long-term survival, wear, and cost. Further, as quality measures have become incorporated into reimbursement, there is a need to quantify factors which may influence these outcomes. Currently, there is a paucity of literature regarding the effects of the femoral head composition on clinical outcomes or quality of life.Questions/PurposesWe sought to determine if any difference in quality of life measures could be detected in patients treated with total hip replacement implanted with cobalt-chrome (CoCr) versus ceramic femoral heads at 2-year follow-up.MethodsWe compared the hip disability and osteoarthritis outcome score (HOOS) and EuroQOL (EQ5D) scores of a matched set of patients that underwent primary total hip arthroplasty with highly cross-linked polyethylene (HXLPE) and a single implant system consisting of either a metal or a ceramic femoral head.ResultsClinical outcomes and quality of life improved for both groups after hip replacement surgery. Patients with a ceramic head showed greater improvement than those with a metal head in HOOS pain and EQ5D VAS scores by a statistically significant margin (p = 0.0417 and 0.019, respectively), but the differences between the HOOS and EQ5D VAS scores (3.4 and 0.04, respectively) do not demonstrate a clinically significant difference.ConclusionsWe found that the femoral head composition has no effect on clinical outcomes or patient quality of life at 2 years.

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