Joint Registries as Continuous Surveillance Systems: The Experience of the Catalan Arthroplasty Register (RACat)

The aim was to present results on prosthesis performance in Catalonia for the period 2005–2010. All publicly funded hospitals submit in an electronic format data on hip and knee arthroplasties: patients' insurance identification number, hospital, joint (hip/knee), type of arthroplasty (primary/revision), side (right/left), date of surgery and prosthesis (manufacturer name and catalogue number). A standard survival analysis based on Kaplan–Meier estimation was carried out. Fifty-two hospitals have sent information to the RACat which has data on 36,951 knee and 26,477 hip arthroplasties. Cumulative prostheses revision risks at 3 years were 3.3% (95% CI: 3.1–3.6) for knee, 2.9% (95% CI: 2.5–3.3) for total hip and 2.5% (95% CI: 2.0–3.1) for partial hip. When compared to other registries a higher risk of revision was observed.