Systematic Review of Proximal Femoral Arthroplasty for Non-Neoplastic Conditions

Proximal femoral arthroplasty (PFA) is an established treatment modality following oncological resection. Increasingly, these prostheses are being used for non-neoplastic conditions such as fractures and bone loss associated with septic or aseptic loosening. We performed a systematic review of the literature to determine the failure rates, mortality rates and hip outcome scores when PFAs were used in non-neoplastic conditions. There were 14 studies with an average follow-up of 3.8 years (range 0–14 years) describing 356 PFAs. Re-operation for any reason occurred in 23.8% (85/356) of cases. The most common complications were dislocation (15.7%) and infection (7.6%). The mortality rate ranged from 0% to 40%. PFA provides an acceptable surgical solution when confronted with massive bone loss, but it has a high re-operation rate for dislocation and infection.