A 15- to 25- Year Follow-Up Study of Primary Charnley Low-Friction Arthroplasty

Long term outcome studies are essential to determine the effectiveness and durability of a procedure. We report our 15 to 25 year clinical and radiographic follow-up with the Charnley low-friction hip arthroplasty. Four hundred and forty-seven primary Charnley hip arthroplasties were performed by a single surgeon. Ninety-eight of the 447 hips from 75 patients were available for follow up at average of 18.9 years (range 15.3 to 25.4 years). Seventy-two hips (73.5%) survived clinically. Of these 72, seventy-one stems (98.6%) and 60 sockets (83.3%) survived radiographically. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis on all 447 hips using revision as an endpoint revealed 66.2% ± 5.7% survival at 20 years. Twenty-six hips were revised. The main reason for revision was failure of the socket. Complications included dislocation (3 of 98 hips), heterotopic ossification (7 of 98 hips), trochanteric wire breakage (6 of 98 hips), and trochanteric non-union (1 of 98 hips). Charnley low-friction hip arthroplasty is an effective and durable procedure.