Minimum 25-Year Results of a Tapered Titanium Porous Plasma Spray Coated Femoral Component.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have reported excellent results with tapered, titanium, porous plasma-sprayed components in patients undergoing uncemented primary total hip arthroplasty (THA). The purpose of this study was to examine survival and clinical results at a minimum 25-year follow-up. METHODS: We reviewed all patients who underwent primary THA at our center through 1995 with a specific femoral component that was essentially unchanged since its 1984 introduction, except porous coating was continued circumferentially in 1987, a hydroxyapatite-coated option was offered in 1988, and an offset option was added in 1999. There were 332 patients (396 THA) who had a minimum 25-year follow-up (range, 25 to 37). Mean age at surgery was 48 years (range, 21 to 70 years). Mean follow-up in nonfailed patients was 29 years (range, 25 to 37 years). RESULTS: There were 31 femoral revisions (7.8%): 9 infections, 3 failures of ingrowth, 5 aseptic loosening, 8 osteolysis well-fixed, 2 periprosthetic fractures, 2 polyethylene wear with trochanteric avulsion, 1 component breakage, and 1 malalignment well-fixed. Kaplan-Meier survival with the endpoint of all-cause stem revision was 94.8% (95% confidence interval: ±0.9%) at 37 years, and with the endpoint of aseptic loosening/failure of ingrowth was 98.7% (95% confidence interval: ±0.5) at 37 years. Harris hip scores improved significantly from 43 preoperatively to 76 most recently. CONCLUSION: This tapered, titanium, porous plasma spray-coated femoral component continues to demonstrate high long-term survival with a low rate of femoral component revision for any reason or aseptic loosening/failure of ingrowth.

The Viability of an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Prediction Model to Determine Candidates for Knee Arthroplasty.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to assess the viability of a knee arthroplasty prediction model using 3-view X-rays that helps determine if patients with knee pain are candidates for total knee arthroplasty (TKA), unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA), or are not arthroplasty candidates. METHODS: Analysis was performed using radiographic and surgical data from a high-volume joint replacement practice. The dataset included 3 different X-ray views (anterior-posterior, lateral, and sunrise) for 2,767 patients along with information of whether that patient underwent an arthroplasty surgery (UKA or TKA) or not. This resulted in a dataset including 8,301 images from 2,707 patients. This dataset was then split into a training set (70%) and holdout test set (30%). A computer vision model was trained using a transfer learning approach. The performance of the computer vision model was evaluated on the holdout test set. Accuracy and multiclass receiver operating characteristic area under curve was used to evaluate the performance of the model. RESULTS: The artificial intelligence model achieved an accuracy of 87.8% on the holdout test set and a quadratic Cohen's kappa score of 0.811. The multiclass receiver operating characteristic area under curve score for TKA was calculated to be 0.97; for UKA a score of 0.96 and for No Surgery a score of 0.98 was achieved. An accuracy of 93.8% was achieved for predicting Surgery versus No Surgery and 88% for TKA versus not TKA was achieved. CONCLUSION: The artificial intelligence/machine learning model demonstrated viability for predicting which patients are candidates for a UKA, TKA, or no surgical intervention.

The Impact of the Fascia Iliaca Block Beyond Perioperative Pain Control in Hip Fractures: A Retrospective Review.

Background: Geriatric hip fractures are common injuries that are associated with high morbidity and mortality. Adequate pain control remains a challenge as the altered physiology in elderly patients makes use of traditional analgesics challenging. The use of regional anesthetics, specifically the fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB), in the perioperative period has been shown to decrease opioid use in this population. This study aimed to investigate the effect the FICB had on pain control, length of stay, readmissions, and complications in a 30-day postoperative period. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study comparing patients who sustained hip fractures; one cohort (110 patients) received a preoperative fascia iliaca block with continuous infusion (FICB), whereas the other cohort (110 patients) did not receive a block (NO-FICB). Both cohorts were from level II trauma centers. Data were collected between 2016 and 2019. Descriptive statistics was performed to describe and summarize the data. Bivariate analysis was performed using chi-square test, with 2 tailed P-values ≤ .05 were considered statistically significant. Results: The FICB group had a lower length of stay (3.9 days vs 4.8 days; P < .001), and lower pain scores on post-operative days 2 and 3 (P = .019). There was no difference in time from admission to surgery (P = .112) or narcotic use between cohorts (P = .304). However, the FICB group was more likely to discharge to a skilled nursing facility (P=.002), and more likely to be readmitted within 30 days (P = .047). There were no differences in medical complications or mortality between the 2 groups. Conclusions: The primary study endpoint, length of stay, was found to be significantly shorter in the patients who underwent the FICB vs the group who did not undergo the FICB. Pain scores on POD2 and POD3 were lower in patients who received a FICB. This study adds to the body of evidence that the FICB is an effective addition to a multimodal pain pathway. Level of Evidence: Level III Evidence - Retrospective Cohort Study.