Bipolar hip arthroplasty as salvage treatment for loosening of the acetabular cup with significant bone defects.

Introduction: Revision arthroplasty of the hip is becoming increasingly important in recent years. Early primary arthroplasty and longer life expectancy of the patients increases the number of revision surgery. Revision surgery of hip arthroplasty is major surgery for the patients, especially the elderly, with significant risks concerning the general condition of the patient. The aim of this work is to evaluate the outcome of bipolar hip arthroplasty as a salvage procedure for treatment of loosening of the acetabular cup with significant acetabular bone defects after total hip replacement (THR) in multi-morbid patients.

Patients and methods: During the period from January 1(st) 2007 to December 31(st) 2011 19 revision hip surgeries were performed in 19 patients, in which the loosened acetabular cup was replaced by a bipolar head. The examined patient group consisted exclusively of female patients with an average of 75 years. The predominant diagnosis was "aseptic loosening" (84.2%). All patients in our study were multi-morbid. We decided to resort to bipolar hip arthroplasty due to the compromised general condition of patients and the major acetabular bone defects, which were confirmed intraoperatively. The postoperative follow-up ranged from 0.5 to 67 months (average 19.1 months).

Results: Evaluation of the modified Harris Hip Score showed an overall improvement of the function of the hip joint after surgery of approximately 45%. Surgery was less time consuming and thus adequate for patients with significantly poor general health condition. We noticed different complications in a significant amount of patients (68.4%). The most common complication encountered was the proximal migration of the bipolar head. The rate of revision following the use of bipolar hip arthroplasty in revision surgery of the hip in our patients was high (21%). Despite the high number of complications reported in our study, we have noticed significant improvement of hip joint function as well as subjective pain relief in the majority of patients. We clearly achieved clinically satisfactory results in 14 patients.

Conclusion: Bipolar hip arthroplasty is by no means to be regarded as standard procedure in revision surgery of THR. It provides an option or salvage procedure for patients with poor general condition in whom the quickest possible surgical intervention preserving mobility is required. This is particularly true for multi-morbid patients in whom sufficient acetabular fixation is not possible.