Purpose: Although femoral neck fractures remain a concern in terms of short term failures for hip resurfacing, acetabular component position and fixation are increasingly being recognized as causes of mid term failures for hip resurfacing. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the migration pattern of a cementless acetabular component for a metal on metal hip resurfacing.

Method: Between January 2006 and June 2007, 130 patients underwent metal on metal hip resurfacing; 66 hips in 60 patients were included in this analysis. Forty-eight patients were male and 12 were female, with a mean age of 50 (range, 32–66). Ninety-five percent of the surgeries were performed for osteoarthritis. All surgeries were performed by two surgeons using the Conserve Plus (Wright Medical Technology, Memphis, TN) hip resurfacing system. The acetabular component is a monoblock cobalt chrome with a porous beaded surface for osteointegration. In all cases acetabular migration was measured both vertically and horizontally, on serial radiographs using the computer-assisted Ein Bild Röntgen Analyse (EBRA) method. A minimum of three comparable radiographs is necessary for calculating the migration curves. We scored medial migration as negative horizontal movement.

Results: At a mean follow up 25.3 months (range, 24–36 months), each hip had an average of 5.1 radiographs for analysis. The software excluded two cases for poor comparability ending finally with 64 cases for the analysis. Eighty-seven point five per cent of the cups showed less than 1 mm migration in the medium-lateral axis and 54.7% less than 1 mm in the vertical axis. Seventy-seven percent of the cups showed a combined migration of less than 2 mm in the observation period, without radiolucencies, leaving 23% of the acetabular components with 2 mm or greater of component migration. One of these cases required revision for aseptic loosening at 34 months.

Conclusion: In our study the majority of the acetabular components were stable with some of the migration observed secondary to lack of complete initial seating due to the rigidity of the shell. Krismer et al did report on the migration of the PCA shell (also a porous beaded cobalt-chrome shell) using EBRA, with 27.5% of the shells demonstrating > 1 mm of migration. Although hip resurfacing has only mid term followup, results have been good to excellent. Caution should still be maintained since the higher frictional torque generated by the larger femoral head size as well as the nanometer size particles could negatively affect long term fixation of the acetabular component.