NEJM Study Says Ditch Cementless Hemiarthroplasty Stems for Hip Fractures
Cementless stems result in more periprosthetic fractures than cemented ones in patients having hip hemiarthroplasty for fracture
Editor’s Note: From time to time, CORRelations runs a short post on older, important studies that readers may not have seen because of where they were published. Here is one.
What’s the Claim?
A large randomized trial published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that cemented hemiarthroplasty outperformed cementless hemiarthroplasty in terms of health-related quality of life and had a much lower risk of periprosthetic fracture a year after surgery for femoral neck fracture. Over 1200 patients participated, and they ranged in functional level from community ambulators to patients who resided in nursing homes. The between-group difference in quality of life was modest — about the same as the difference as a new diagnosis of asthma — but the odds of periprosthetic fracture were more than four times greater in the cementless group. There were no differences between the groups in deaths or other complications.
