Elizabeth Hofheinz, M.P.H., M.Ed. • Mon, November 24th, 2014
How do young people with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) who undergo total hip replacement (THR) fare 15 to 20 years out? Researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) are enlightening people on this little-researched topic. First of all, they say, THR is an “excellent option” for patients under age 35 when conservative treatments don’t solve the problem. And, in 85% of patients, hip replacement lasted at least 10 years JIA patients. Taken out to 20 years, 50% of the patients needed revision surgery.
“The surgery in this patient population, although performed by only a small number of specialized orthopedic surgeons nationwide, is life-changing for JIA patients,” said Mark P. Figgie, M.D., senior author of the study and chief of the Surgical Arthritis Service at HSS, in the November 16, 2014 news release. “Joint replacement can free patients from a life of unrelenting pain. It can enable those in a wheel chair to walk again. Patients can go back to school or work and get their lives back.”
“This study followed one of the largest cohorts of patients with JIA to see how they fared 10 years and 20 years after total hip replacement,” said Ishaan Swarup, M.D., an orthopedic surgery resident at HSS. “It is also one of the few studies to look at patient-reported measures, such as pain and the ability to perform activities of daily living.”
Of the 56 patients involved, 41 patients had undergone bilateral hip replacement, while 15 individuals had only one side replaced; there were a total of 97 hip replacement surgeries. The mean time for follow-up was 12 years.
