The importance of biomechanical restoration for total hip arthroplasty

Sammanfattning: Total hip arthroplasty (THA) has become a safe and very successful surgical intervention. A vast majority of patients get their expectations met. Improvement of materials, implant designs, and surgical techniques, have extended prosthetic survival. However, inferior placement and sizing of a hip prosthesis are known to increase the risk of mechanical failure, wear, and early loosening as well as patient dissatisfaction. The main objective of this thesis was to evaluate the importance of improved biomechanical restoration for the function and survival of THA, as well as finding ways of achieving this improvement. We used radiostereometry (RSA), low dose computer tomography (CT) for 3D measurements, 3D templating, prosthetic modularity, and 3D gait analysis, together with patient-reported outcomes. We found a strong correlation between initial postoperative femoral neck anteversion (FNA) and subsequent posterior rotation and loosening of cemented stems. Our 3D measurement techniques showed near-perfect inter- and intraobserver agreements regarding our femoral offset (FO), acetabular offset (AO), and global offset (GO) measurements. We did not see any differences in RSA migration between uncemented modular and standard stem types, both stabilised well with good migration pattern. Postoperative FNA and FO/AO quota had no impact on uncemented stem migration, maybe due to the study being underpowered. The standard stem tended to result in insufficient GO, whereas the modular stem did not. 3D templating was superior in the correct prediction of the final stem size and neck, but 2D templating overestimated stem-size and underestimated neck-length. There was no statistically significant difference regarding cup size predictions. We found an unexpected progressive varus deformation, with concomitant corrosion-related cobalt ion release, from the modular stem-neck junction. However, the ion-concentrations did not correlate with adverse local tissue reaction (ALTR) as measured with MRI up to 8 years. Biomechanical restoration during THA does positively impact the quality of postoperative overall gait pattern, with faster walking speed and with less trunk lean over the affected side. Increased FNA was associated with increased internal hip rotation during walking. An increase in external hip adduction moments was, on the other hand, not associated with a change in FO/AO quota but with a more upright walking position and increased walking speed.Biomechanical restoration is important for THA and our studies confirm the need for precise measuring- and evaluation-tools for this kind of research.