Is Dual Mobility Total Hip Arthroplasty Surgery More Aggressive than Hemiarthroplasty when Treating Femoral Neck Fracture in the Elderly? A Multicentric Retrospective Study on 302 Hips.

Introduction: Bipolar hemiarthroplasty (BHA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) are validated treatments for displaced femoral neck fractures (DFNFs). BHA seldomly needs conversion to THA, but the latter has higher dislocation rate in FNFs. Dual Mobility THA offers a reduced dislocation rate and eliminates the risk of conversion. This study looks for differences between BHA and DMTHA in terms of surgical time, blood loss and transfusion, dislocation rate, mortality, and thromboembolic events.

Material And Methods: All patients were ≥75yo. Recorded data included use of anticoagulant/antiplatelet drugs, ASA, operative time, intra-operative complications, pre/post-operative hemoglobin values, transfusions, hospitalization time, DVT/PE, glomerular filtration rate, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), dislocation at 60 days, and mortality at 30 days and 6 months. A secondary analysis compared the subgroups in different age range (75-85 and ≥ 86yo).

Results: In the cohort of 302 DFNF (93 BHA and 209 DMTHA) differences in mean age, CCI, and ASA score were significant. Once divided by age, the subgroups resulted comparable in terms of age and CCI, with no significant difference. A significant difference in surgical times showed DMTHA being an average 12 minutes longer than BHA. Significant was the ΔHB in the DMTHA subgroup which resulted lower compared to the BHA one. Difference in mean number of post-operative transfusion were not statistically significant.

Conclusions: From our data, DMTHA did not lead to an increase in mortality, morbidity, bleeding, or dislocation rate when compared to BHA and could be considered as treatment of choice for DFNFs especially in healthy and active patients.