total hip arthroplasty in failed hip fractures: a case series

Osteoporosis is epidemic in Asian countries. It is a major cause of fractures that orthopaedic surgeons deal in Pakistan, though proper epidemiological data is not available. Habiba U et al found that 75.3% of post menopausal women of Pakistan were predisposed to Osteoporosis; whereas Baig L has described an average T - score of -1.833±0.65 on bone mineral density calculation of post menopausal females of Pakistan. Osteoporotic hip fractures constitute a major cause of elderly mortality worldwide and recent figures supporting the idea that these patients have survival rates comparable to breast and thyroid cancer patients. Pakistan is a developing country with large burden of hip fractures. Patients living in remote areas are the ones which suffer more because of inadequate awareness, fear of surgical treatment and lack of availability of standard treatment. These patients are dealt by surgeons of various expertise and levels of experience. Lack of facilities in hospitals is well known and usage of sub-standard implant is a major cause of failure. Therefore these patients either because of their bone fragility or mal-treatment suffer frequently from failure of hip fracture surgeries. Being in a tertiary care centre we come across these types of cases very frequently. Six to eight such cases present to outpatient department of Liaquat National Hospital every month being referred from every part of the country. These patients may have been operated once, twice or even multiple times. Special attention is required to acquire an informative history from these cases and perform a comprehensive examination. Moreover previous records and radiographs provide invaluable information regarding cause of failure and deciding course of further treatment. We herein discuss few of the cases of failure of hip fractures which were treated by hip arthroplasty.