If there is osteoarthritis of the hip joint with damage to the articular cartilage, this often leads to pain that occurs during weight-bearing or at rest and severely limits the quality of life. If cartilage-preserving measures are no longer possible (injection treatments, arthroscopy, etc.), replacement of the hip joint should be considered.

Currently, there are various surgical procedures to replace both joint partners and to achieve freedom from pain and restoration of the reduced quality of life. Hip arthroplasty is a procedure that has been established for years to treat advanced hip osteoarthritis. For years, uncemented and cemented hip endoprostheses have been implanted with very good success, which can be expected to last 15-20 years until replacement surgery may be necessary.

In recent years, alternative treatment concepts have developed so that many hip arthroses can be treated with bone-saving implants. In many cases, these can be inserted via a minimally invasive anterior (AMIS, DAA) or antero-lateral approach (keyhole technique), so that postoperative mobilization can take place much more quickly.

Bone-sparing implants are short stem implants,that require less bone resection than conventional implants. In many cases, these bone-saving implants enable the implantation of a conventional implant in future replacement operations, so that these types of endoprostheses can be regarded as "prosthesis before prosthesis".

In recent years, however, implantation of the surface replacement prosthesis has been discouraged because in many cases there has been severe abrasion by the metal-on-metal bearing couple with the formation of metallosis, pseudotumors, hypersensitivity and neurological problems. Therefore, affected patients should urgently have a control of the metal ion serum concentration and further examinations performed, which will detect serious complications at an early stage. We perform such screening examination in affected patients in our center.

Rapid Recovery and Fast-Track - Get back on your feet quickly

Patients are mobilized with a full load on the affected joint immediately after the surgical procedure following the fitting of an endoprosthesis and are discharged for further treatment after a few days. This has been happening for some time with many patients with a Fast Recovery, Rapid Recovery or Fast Track Procedure,, so that a rapid return to normal activity can be achieved. It can also reduce the hospital stay to a few days.

Typical osteoarthritis with loss of cartilage and joint space. Postoperative images after a total hip arthroplasty procedure

Modern surgical treatment of hip osteoarthritis with 2 different short hip stems