Help Needed - Decision Time.....Am I too young? Do I have to just deal w/ pain?

[DonC]

No question the BHR is the #1 unit on the market. As I stated above there has not been enough time to determine whether the Biomet unit is any better or worse than the BHR. However, I do think it’s important to let newbies know that the cemented BHR is not the only choice and there may be a new direction toward uncemented technology that they should research.

I don’t think you need to be “supremely confident” that uncemented devices work. The majority of resurfacings as well as total hip replacements already have an uncemented acetabular component including the BHR.

I made my decision to go uncemented because it seemed very clear to me that the entire industry was making a shift towards uncemented/bone growth components based on their time proven performance. Whether this works better as a femoral component for resurfacing only time will tell.

As Dr. Gross states…

“In hip resurfacing there is universal agreement that uncemented fixation is superior for the acetabular component. However, until recently, uncemented femoral components have not been available, therefore most hip resurfacing operations in the past have employed cemented fixation of the femoral component.”

“In total hip replacement, uncemented fixation has virtually completely replaced cemented fixation in stemmed total hip replacements, despite the fact that these implants are more expensive. 99% of acetabular (socket) components that are used today are of the uncemented type, as are about 90% of femoral stems.”

Dr. Gross will also install a cemented device if that’s what you desire. For those who would like to read more here is the article from Dr. Gross.

http://www.surfacehippy.info/uncemented2yearstudygross10.php

[obxpelican]

One could say that the cementless femoral component has not been proven, but Doctor Gross is not saying that, in fact his results have shown not a single failure of the femoral component other than AVN.  Doctor Gross's number with cementless has matched his already postive outcome numbers with cemented.

Cementless just made sense to me, the acetabular cup is applied without cement, THRs for the most part are cementless--- to me there is nothing better than using bone on component to hold for a long time, remember when a THR fails the surgeon must pound out the old stem because the bone holds so well.

In the future I believe cementless will be the gold standard, it just makes sense.

JMHO.

Chuck

[nysoccermom]

Dr. Su has a section on his web site for out of town patients regarding logistics (under patient info tab).