I was talking to a guy I work with; he knew I'd had resurfacing, so he told me that he'd had two THRs put in. His first one he had done 17 years ago, the other about 5 years ago.
We talked a bit about how he was feeling, and he mentioned that he had been told that he would probably need a revision at 15 years or so. He said he felt fine, but was ready to do a revision if it was called for. He walked fine, no visible limp or anything, so I think the judge is out on it.
Here's the cumulative revision rates from the Australian registry (2010) , compiled up to ten years:
THR - 6.4%, HR - 7.7%.
That is for all surgeons, all patients, experienced surgeons and not so much, etc. It is also cumulative, so it adds up the total failures over the 10 years. So we're looking at everyone, from those that failed at the first year to the tenth.
One thing I learned in my few years as a biochemist, that you can do some prediction of the future based on the data that is graphed. The graph type that I see is asymptotic, so it doesn't rise the same amount every year, rather it is flattening out. Which means to me that the rate of revisions is more likely to remain constant as the years go on.
There obviously will be more revisions, but the bulk of us will go on (queue Titanic music here
), and this for me is where faith and hope walk right in that door. I'm ready for a revision if it's called for, but hopeful that I can ride these babies into the sunset.