Hip implants loosened after surgery

A NUMBER of elderly patients who underwent hip replacement surgery at a Cork hospital required a second operation after the implanted device loosened.

The HSE has confirmed it conducted an audit of the 417 patients fitted with the implant after concerns were raised by orthopaedic surgeons at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Following the audit, the HSE South wrote in February to 247 predominately elderly people (most of the remainder were deceased), and their GPs, inviting them to attend for a check-up.

Of these, 139 attended, of whom 10 required and have completed revision surgery. Some patients are under ongoing clinical review and may require surgery in the future. Six more revision surgeries are scheduled for 2012.

All those involved had undergone a hemiarthroplasty — an operation similar to total hip replacement but involving half the hip — between 2005 and 2008.

The HSE said check-ups were scheduled because 17 patients who had a hemiarthroplasty after a hip fracture during the relevant period had experienced some problems with their hip “earlier than would be expected, ie loosening of their prosthesis”.

The Irish Examiner is aware of one elderly patient whose implant collapsed within five years of being fitted, causing her to fall.

She required an operation to insert a new hip and an operation to repair a wrist broken as a result of the fall.

The HSE said while the number of people needing attention was quite small, the orthopaedic team at CUH felt check-ups and X-rays should be offered. All care was free of charge.

Dr Orla Healy, chair of the incident management team, said the decision to review the patients was in response to concerns raised by CUH consultants who “found a higher than average revision rate” among patients who underwent this surgery.

However, she stressed it was not a cause for alarm and said that while revision rates were “higher than average, they were not unprecedented”.

The HSE said it was not possible to make precise comparisons with international statistics because this type of data “is not routinely collected in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe, the USA or Canada”.