The incidence of cement extrusion from the acetabulum in total hip arthroplasty

Acetabular cement extrusion (CE) is a common finding after total hip arthroplasty, but the incidence is unclear from the literature, and there is no accepted way of measuring it. We report a retrospective observational study of 100 patients (25 consecutive patients from each of 4 consultants, 112 hips) to determine the site and incidence of CE on postoperative radiographs, and to measure its area and the maximum distance of the extruded cement from the edge of the cement mantle. We found that 50 of 112 (44.6%) hips showed evidence of CE, with a 15.2% incidence of CE > 200 mm(2).