The feasibility of achieving Elective Care Framework targets for total hip arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty in Northern Ireland.

Aims: Waiting times for arthroplasty surgery in Northern Ireland are among the longest in the NHS, which have been further lengthened by the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic in March 2020. The Department of Health in Northern Ireland has announced a new Elective Care Framework (ECF), with the framework proposing that by March 2026 no patient will wait more than 52 weeks for inpatient/day case treatment. We aimed to assess the feasibility of achieving this with reference to total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA).

Improving efficiency of a regional stand alone bone bank.

The introduction of a stand-alone Bone Bank in our Regional Orthopaedic Hospital has improved the availability of femoral head allograft. Benninger et al. (Bone Joint J 96-B:1307-1311, 2014), demonstrated their institutions bank to be cost effective despite a 30 % discard rate for harvested allograft.

Total hip arthroplasty following an ipsilateral above knee amputation.

Total hip arthroplasty in patients with previous above knee amputations is rare. We present a unique case where the patient had only 130 mm of proximal femur remaining following a previous traumatic above knee amputation. The short segment of femur meaning a conventional femoral stem could not be used.

Use of erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein level to diagnose infection before revision total knee arthroplasty. A prospective evaluation.

Background: Despite the widespread use of several diagnostic tests, there is still no perfect test for the diagnosis of infection at the site of a total knee arthroplasty. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic test characteristics of the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein level for the assessment of infection in patients presenting for revision total knee arthroplasty.

Methods: One hundred and fifty-one knees in 145 patients presenting for revision total knee arthroplasty were evaluated prospectively for the presence of infection with measurement of the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and the C-reactive protein level.

Osteoblast-derived factors induce androgen-independent proliferation and expression of prostate-specific antigen in human prostate cancer cells.

Purpose: Prostate cancer metastasizes to the skeleton to form osteoblastic lesions. Androgen ablation is the current treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. This therapy is palliative, and the disease will return in an androgen-independent form that is preceded by a rising titer of prostate-specific antigen (PSA).