I'll offer a few opinions, too.
1) No one knows how long your HR will last. You can look at data from the doctors who track results and you can review the anecdotes we offer, but that is the best you can do. The data only goes out about fifteen years but you can find a few early recipients of HR from 20plus years ago who still have their fake hips.
The device itself should last for decades. Its adherence to your bone is the issue; aseptic loosening, or coming loose from the bone, is the limiter, as I understand it. This is the limiter for THR, too.
If my HR fails, I will try to get it fixed and if that won't work, revise to a THR. My biggest concern is finding a doctor who will know how to work with HR ten-fifteen-twenty years from now since the experienced docs are aging and the technique is more niche-y. If the new ceramic HRs work well, I hope the number of HR docs will rise and there will be new, young docs added.
When I decided to have surgery I told myself that I would likely get ten-fifteen years of my HR. That is what the data led me to believe (unless I was in the unlucky 2%). That would be ten-ffiteen years of running, hiking, jumping, dancing, stretching and take me to age 63-68. I could live with that. And I might get more years and/or my device might outlive me.
2) Other potential dangers. There just isn't any evidence of those. I haven't thought about these in a while, but I don't remember seeing any studies showing cancer or necrosis. You can generalize and look for studies where people (and animals) have metal plates and screws put in, not just metal hip joints.
There are cases in which too many metal ions build up, more than your body can clear, but those cases are increasingly rare since about 2012. Read thru the old Yahoo hip resurfacing sites and you can see the initial excitement about HR and people fighting to get in clinical trials because HR is so much better than THR. Then you see a sharp decline in enthusiasm as there is a wave of defectively designed prosthesis issues and doctors who make mistakes. In around 2012 doctors realize there is an optimal angle at which the ace tabular cup can be put in, one that avoids metal ion issues. Today the defective devices are off the market, the less skilled doctors have stopped doing HR, and the doctors who still operate know about the safe cup angle so the metal ion issue is pretty much gone.
If the idea of metal joints still disturbs you, get one Dr Pritchett's non metal joints or try to get into a clinical trial for one of the new ceramic joints.
The bottom line for me was that after weighing the risks and the benefits, HR was the way to go. I could live with the risks and was willing to take them for the potential benefits.
Best of luck.
Dr Gross bilat
11-15