There is much talk about bone sparing of the femoral component of the resurfacing, but little talk about the acetabular component. For a revision from a resurfacing to eventual THA the acetabular component needs to be replaced as well from my understanding. Can anyone tell me about the problems that exist with this or how many revisions can be done with this component?

Hi

Welcome to Hip Talk.

From my understanding, if there is no problem with the acetabular cup, there is no need to replace it.  There have been several people that have had revisions from their hip resurfacings due to different problems, and they only had the femur component replaced.

That is again, one of the reasons to have a hip replacing. If you need a revision, you only need the femur portion of the hip device replaced.  I carry a card that states the sizes of my BHR cap and cup.  It came with my BHR and if I ever were in an accident and hurt the femur portion, they could just match the cup size of my actabular cup.

I don't know who told you that the acetabular cup would have to be replaced in a revision.  I don't believe it is correct since several people on the Yahoo Surface Hippy Discussion Group have already had that problem.  http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/surfacehippy/  It is a group of over 6000+ people and you might find more information there.  Hip Talk is a fairly new discussion group.

If someone told you that more bone is removed from the acetabulum for hip resurfacing, that is not true either.  Here is Dr. Bose article about the subject  http://www.surfacehippy.info/acetabularboneloss.php

I hope that helps.

Pat in Ohio
3/15/06 LBHR De Smet