The Incidence of Fracture in Total Hip Replacement Femoral Components

Abstract

The paper reports on the incidence of fracture of the femoral component of total hip replacements in patients at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital over the period 1963-1976. The average incidence of fracture was approximately 0.2 per cent per year for air melt air cast cobalt chrome components. For vacuum melt vacuum cast components there were no fractures, but because of the small number of insertions with a long follow-up period, this result could have been fortuitous. There was a suggestion that the fracture rate increased with time, but even 0.2 per cent is considered too high.