Does a history of cardiac disease or hypertension increase mortality following primary elective total hip arthroplasty?

Preoperative co-morbidities such as known coronary artery disease have commonly deemed a patient at ‘high risk’ for primary elective Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA). We prospectively collected data on 1744 patients who underwent primary elective THA between 1998 and 2004; 273 had a history of cardiac disease defined as a previous hospital admission with a diagnosis of angina pectoris or myocardial infarction; 594 patients had hypertension defined as that requiring treatment with antihypertensives. We also had data on preoperative age, sex and body mass index (BMI). There was no statistically significant increase in early mortality at three months with a history of cardiac disease or hypertension and this remained so when adjusting for the other factors in a multivariate analysis. Sex or BMI also did not have a statistically significant effect on the risk of death within three months. Increasing age was the only significant risk factor for early mortality (p<0.001). Longer-term mortality at two and five years in relation to these factors was also examined. Statistical analysis revealed that coronary history now showed a highly significant association (p<0.001) with long-term mortality in patients who survived more than three months. This remained significant (p=0.002) when adjusted for the other factors. Hypertension continued to have no effect, as did BMI. Age remained a significant risk factor and ASA was also a predictor of death, as has been previously shown. The overall long-term mortality following THA was less than expected from the normal population, even in the subgroup with a coronary history. This study will assist clinicians when advising patients who have one of these common risk factors when seeking primary elective THA.