Charnley total hip arthroplasty with use of improved cementing techniques: a minimum twenty-year follow-up study

In total hip arthroplasty, techniques for cementing the femoral component have changed over time. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether a cementing technique that includes use of a distal cement plug and retrograde filling of the femoral canal affects the fixation of the femoral component at a minimum of twenty years after the operation.

Between 1976 and 1978, the senior one of us (R.C.J.) performed 357 total hip arthroplasties with use of a Charnley flatback polished femoral stem and a contemporary cementing technique (insertion of a distal cement plug and retrograde filling of the femoral canal with cement) in 320 patients. The results after a minimum follow-up of twenty years were compared with those after 330 total hip arthroplasties performed, between 1970 and 1972, with the same femoral stem by the same surgeon with use of a hand-packing technique of cementing in 262 patients. The clinical and radiographic evaluation as well as the duration of follow-up were identical in the two groups.

In the group managed with the contemporary cementing technique, six (1.8%) of the 336 hips that had not been lost to follow-up or revised because of infection or dislocation were revised because of aseptic loosening of the femoral component. Of the ninety-one hips in the eighty-two patients who were alive at a minimum of twenty years, five (5%) had a revision because of aseptic loosening of the femoral component. Only one hip was revised during the fifteen-to-twenty-year follow-up interval. (The revision was performed because of a fracture of the femoral component.) The rate of failure when radiographic signs of loosening were included was 4.8% (sixteen of 336 femoral components that had not been revised because of infection or dislocation) for the group managed with the contemporary cementing technique compared with 6.3% (twenty of 319 hips) in the group managed with the hand-packing technique; the difference was not significant (p = 0.40). Adequate filling of the femoral canal with cement was found to be associated with improved survival of the femoral component (p = 0.03).

While no significant difference between the two cementing techniques could be identified, the ability to deliver adequate cement around the femoral component was more predictable with the contemporary cementing technique. In addition, the prevalence of loosening of the femoral component was low with use of either technique, a tribute to the Charnley flatback polished femoral component design.