How Often Are Very Young Patients Receiving THA?
Orthopedics This Week reports on HSS study findings published in The Journal of Arthroplasty by senior author Bella Mehta, MBBS, MS, MD, rheumatologist, which evaluated trends in total hip arthroplasty (THA) for patients under 21 years of age.
According to Dr. Mehta, “Over the years, with better disease control and biologics, these cases have gone down. We wanted to know if this was the case nationally in patients < 21 years of age. Also, we wanted to know if more procedures are done in these patients.”
The study found the number of THAs performed in this age group from the Kids’ Inpatient Database increased from 347 in 2000 to 551 in 2016, with the most frequent diagnoses being osteonecrosis, osteoarthritis, and inflammatory arthritis.
“Overall, the number of THAs are increasing even though the patients with inflammatory arthritis have a lower number of surgeries. Likely this is because joint damage even in young patients is recognized and instead of these patients being permanently disabled, we are able to observe and treat them with a THA,” she concluded.
Read the full article at Ryortho.com.
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