Increasing femoral offset in total hip replacement (THR) has several benefits including improved hip abductor strength and enhanced range of motion. Biomechanical studies have suggested that this may negatively impact on stem stability. However, it is unclear whether this has a clinical impact. Using data from the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry (AOANJRR), the aim of this study was to determine the impact of stem offset and stem size for the three most common cementless THR prostheses revised for aseptic loosening. The study period was September 1999 to December 2020. The study population included all primary procedures for osteoarthritis with a cementless THR using the Corail, Quadra-H and Polarstem. Procedures were divided into small and large stem sizes and by standard and high stem offset for each stem system. Hazard ratios (HR) from Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for age and gender, were performed to compare revision for aseptic loosening for offset and stem size for each of the three femoral stems. There were 55,194 Corail stems, 13,642 Quadra-H stem, and 13,736 Polarstem prostheses included in this study. For the Corail stem, offset had an impact only when small stems were used (sizes 8-11). Revision for aseptic loosening was increased for the high offset stem (HR=1.90;95% CI 1.53–2.37;p<0.001). There was also a higher revision risk for aseptic loosening for high offset small size Quadra-H stems (sizes 0-3). Similar to the Corail stem, offset did not impact on the revision risk for larger stems (Corail sizes 12-20, Quadra-H sizes 4-7). The Polarstem did not show any difference in aseptic loosening revision risk when high and standard offset stems were compared, and this was irrespective of stem size. High offset may be associated with increased revision for aseptic loosening, but this is both stem size and prosthesis specific

Introduction:. Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is extremely effective in treating debilitating arthritic conditions of the hip. With the many modular prosthetic designs available, surgeons can now precisely construct mechanical parameters such as femoral offset (FO). Although several studies have investigated relationships between offset choice and hip abductor strength, hip range of motion, and prosthetic wear rate, there is scarce data on the effect of FO on pain and functional outcomes following THA. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of restoring FO (within varying degrees compared to the contralateral non-diseased hip [CL]) on physical function, mental well-being, pain, and stiffness outcomes as measured by the Short Form 12 Health Survey (SF-12) and Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) at post-operative follow-up. Methods:. We prospectively collected data on 249 patients that underwent unilateral THA with no or minimal disease of the contralateral hip. Baseline data collection included: age, gender, diagnosis, femoral head size, type of stem, and pre-operative SF-12 and WOMAC scores. Post-operative SF-12 and WOMAC scores were recorded during annual follow-up visits. Post-operative FO was retrospectively measured on standard anteroposterior (AP) pelvis radiographs and compared to FO of CL. FO was measured as the perpendicular distance from the femoral head center of rotation to the anatomic axis of the femur with appropriate adjustments made for image magnification. Patients were categorized into one of three groups: decreased femoral offset (dFO, less than −5 mm compared to CL), normal femoral offset (nFO, between −5 and +5 mm of CL), and increased femoral offset (iFO, greater than +5 mm compared to CL). Results:. In all, 31 patients were categorized into dFO, 163 categorized into nFO, and 55 categorized into iFO. At baseline, the groups differed in categorical diagnoses (p = 0.01). Further analysis revealed a higher percentage of posttraumatic arthritis in dFO as compared to nFO and iFO (12.9%, 1.2%, and 1.8%, respectively). Moreover, a higher percentage of hip dysplasia was present in iFO as compared to nFO and dFO (14.5%, 3.6%, and 6.5%, respectively). Pre-operatively, dFO had lower WOMAC Pain scores than nFO and iFO (29.68, 43.39, and 43.63, respectively; p < 0.005). (Please see Table 1 for comparison of baseline characteristics between groups.) All other pre-operative demographic and survey characteristics were similar. At most recent post-operative follow-up, dFO had lower WOMAC Physical Function scores than nFO and iFO (72.03, 83.23, and 79.51, respectively; p < 0.02) (see Table 2). Discussion:. Reduction of patients' native FOs by greater than 5 mm during THA can lead to inferior levels of physical function. Furthermore, increasing FO by greater than 5 mm did not lead to increased levels of pain nor decreased levels of function