Introduction: The Birmingham Hip Resurfacing(BHR) has shown encouraging early to medium term results. It has tended to be used in patients wishing to achieve high functional activity. However there is little data available to support this notion. The purpose of the study was to report the functional levels of patients following BHR.

Methods: Since February 2000, 313 patients have undergone resurfacing by the senior author. Two hundred and sixty four patients with a minimum 12 month follow-up were assessed for functional activity using the modified UCLA activity score. Patients were asked to score their activity level during the pre-symptomatic period as well as pre-operatively and during follow-up.

Results: The mean age at surgery was 55.7 years. The mean follow-up period was 46.72 months. The revision rate for any reason was 3.8%. The mean pre-symptomatic, pre-operative, one year post-operative and final follow-up UCLA scores were 7.9, 3.7, 6.6 and 7.0 respectively. At one year 89% (235 patients) had improved by at least one activity grade from pre-operative levels and 35% (93 Patients) achieved functional scores the same as, or better than their pre-symptomatic levels. This increased to 45% at final follow-up. Of the 242 patients previously involved in moderate activity(UCLA> =5), 31% regained this activity level at one year, rising to 40% at last follow-up. Only 19% of the 180 patients participating in very active/impact sports(UCLA> =8) obtained these levels at one year, rising to 30% at last follow-up.

Conclusion: This is the first assessment of function after BHR comparing pre-symptomatic scores with those obtained during follow-up. Functional scores continue to improve beyond one year in all groups. Significant numbers of patients can achieve functional levels at least as good as before they developed symptoms from their hip, however, the proportion of patients achieving this goal reduces with increasing pre-symptomatic activity.