Hydroxyapatite-coated femoral arthroplasties: a long-term study through 29 Corail prostheses explanted during a...

In our department, all the patients over 65 years of age with a displaced intracapsular fracture of the upper femur (type III and IV of the Garden's classification) are treated with a femoral hemiarthroplasty (Figs. 1a & 1b). This practice is relatively universal among the European traumatologic centers. Two prospective and randomized trials, published in 2000, reported a high rate of reoperation when treating these fractures with osteosynthesis (36% and 38% of the cases), thus indicating arthroplasty may be preferred.