New York Times article

[jack]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/business/the-high-cost-of-failing-artificial-hips.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

This would sure worry many people. They don't seem to differentiate between THR and resurfacing either. I feel sorry for people that need hip work and have only this type of information to rely on.

[Dannywayoflife]

It seems as though the nyt only ever tell a tiny part of the story!

[Luanna]

The US does not have a registry. That's a shame. Then we'd have more reliable data.

Luanna

[maxx6789]

they are always written by the same writer and i am getting sick of his one-sided "reporting". there is a link on the nyt web site to send a comment to the writer (see below) ... i just sent him a message telling him what i thought of his writing and what i thought of my metal-on-metal hip replacement.

https://myaccount.nytimes.com/membercenter/emailus.html

[mslendzion]

The articles are pretty scary.   Are there any stats produced from the HR results reported by the hippies on this site?  I wonder what the longevity stats look like for the hippies participating in this forum. 

Jack, love your picture, huskies are great, I have 3.

[FlbrkMike]

This guy seems to publish an article every month or two.  Nothing new, nothing specific.  He always lumps all MOM devices with the DePuy, which has had well known problems.

[Pat Walter]

Hi
I would like to comment, mostly for the new people to the group.  All of these articles are one sided. The author and some surgeons have an agenda against hip resurfacing.  The retention rate of the BHR and other devices has been recorded and the records are available to people.  The first place to look are the national registries  http://www.surfacehippy.info/nationalregistries.php  Those are the statistics.

Then start listening to the video interviews by myself and Vicky with the top hip resurfacing surgeons.  They address all of this negative press and give a complete story.  Here are my interviews:  http://www.surfacehippy.info/shvideos/videosdoctor.php
All of my recent interviews include the doctors response to the negative press about hip resurfacing and the negativity of MOM metal on metal THRs and Hip Resurfacing. 

Mr. McMinn addresses the negative press here:  http://www.surfacehippy.info/mcminnnegativepr.php

The information in the National Registries and the video interviews are not opinions, the information is based on facts.  Many of the top resurfacing surgeons have done thousands of resurfacings and they post their retention rates.  The overall retention rate was 99.9% worldwide before 2006 when the US surgeons jumped in and started doing hip resurfacing.  Now the retention rate is 96%   If you look at the retention rates for THRs for overall, males and females, it is really not any better.

We all have to realize there is no perfect hip device or solution.  There will always be some problems with both THRs and hip resurfacing.  The way we can best assure a good outcome is to choose the top surgeons that do thousands of these surgeries and have good records.

It is easy to write articles and say something isn't good based on opinion and half facts.  The only way you know that you can't believe the information is to read other statistic based information.  That will be from the national registries and from the hip resurfacing doctors own series of hip resurfacings.

The folks that have been here a long time realize the above information, but new people can easily be frightened by this type of negative press.  Unfortunately, the ASR did not have a good record.  Also many less experienced surgeons did not place acetabular cups properly causing a lot of revisions.  The really experienced surgeons realized early on, often by instinct and knowing a person physical build, that the cups needed to be placed properly to make the bearing work well. Also there seem to be a lot of Metal on Metal THRs that have had problems.  Even with THRs the components must be placed properly for the 2 pieces of the bearing to work properly.  If the acetabular cup was misplaced, there could be edge loading in a THR, too.  So many things have happened to make metal on metal hip resurfacing look bad.  We need to look at actual statistics to see how well metal on metal hip resurfacing works.  There are thousands of us, just on this discussion group that have well working hip resurfacings.  Here is a survey done by the Yahoo Surfacehippy group of 850 folks that had hip resurfacing and their results:  http://www.surfacehippy.info/survey/hipresurfacingsurvey.php

There is a great deal of information about positive outcomes of hip resurfacing patients. 

Pat

[jon]

OK, I'm biased because I now possess the dreaded MOM, but these articles are just the same narrow and superficial content every time.  Unless the guy actually reports something new or specific, there is really nothing to learn (nonetheless fear).

Jon

ps: I did mention the recent BMJ article to McMinn.  He wryly replied with something like he has requested and gotten access to UK historical data and will shortly use it to evidence the uniquely high retention rates of BHR versus THR. 

[Tin Soldier]

Just like the teacher on Charlie Brown, Wa wa wa wa wa wa wa waaaaa wa waaaa wa.  Or maybe Santa's Little Helper (the dog) on the Simpsons, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, MoM is bad, blah, blah, blah,... Heard it all before, same crap, same bat channel.