ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the safety, economic effect, and short-term clinical efficacy of ambulatory total hip arthroplasty (THA) in the treatment of hip osteopathy within.Methods:This study retrospectively reviewed patients who underwent 48-hour outpatient THA and conventional primary THA from July 2020 to July 2021. Gender, age, body mass index (BMI), clinical diagnosis, place of resident, length of hospital stay, duration of the surgery, hemoglobin, albumin, C-reactive protein (CRP) and D-dimer before and 1 day after surgery, the visual analogue scale (VAS) was obtained postoperative day 2, hip joint modified Harris score before and 1 month after surgery, readmission and reoperation within 1 month after operation as the data of evaluations were extracted and compared in this study.Results:A totally of 150 cases were involved in this study, which including 75 cases with 48-hour outpatient primary THA and 75 cases with conventional primary THA. There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, sex, BMI, education level, preoperative diagnosis, and preoperative Harris score ( P>0.05), but a significant difference was found in term of residence (χ 2=6.29, P=0.043), that the patients in the outpatient group were all from Zhejiang Province and 48% (36/75) of them were from Hangzhou City. While, in the conventional group, 6 patients were from other provinces. The length of stay was 2.13±0.52 days and operation time was 59.73±18.91 minutes in the outpatient group, which were both shorter than those (6.71±1.44 days and 66.91±22.40 min) in the conventional group ( t=25.91, P<0.001 for the length of hospital stay; t=2.12, P=0.036 for operation time). Compared with the conventional group, outpatient group saved the average hospital cost (4.60±0.44 vs. 5.20±0.72 ten thousand yuan, t=6.16, P<0.001). The VAS on the second day after surgery 3.45±0.75 was higher in the outpatient group than in the conventional group (3.45±0.75 vs. 3.16±0.94 points, t=2.09, P=0.039). The modified Harris score was without statistical significance ( t=0.42, P=0.677) 1 month after surgery in both groups. 75 patients in the outpatient group, 7 patients delayed discharge (were not discharge within 48 hours), and the rate of delayed discharge was 9.3%. Reasons for delayed discharge included poor pain control in two cases, one case had postoperative nausea and vomiting, one case had failed to meet rehabilitation standards, hypotension in one case, the intraoperative infection in one case and postoperative fever within 48 hours in one case. Conclusion:Outpatient THA can reduce the length of hospital stay, operative time and total cost of hospitalization. It has similar safety and early clinical efficacy as conventional THA. However, a small proportion of patients would delay discharge.