The British Orthopaedic Association has endorsed a website, www.orthoconsent.com, allowing surgeons free access to a bank of pre-written consent forms. These are designed to improve the level of information received by the patient and lessen the risk of successful litigation against surgeons and Health Trusts.

This study evaluated the feasibility of using published data from more than one register to define the performance of different hip implants. In order to obtain estimates of performance for specific types of hip system from different register, we analysed data from the annual reports of five national and one Italian regional register. We extracted the number of implants and rates of implant survival at different periods of follow-up. Our aim was to assess whether estimates of cumulative survival rate were comparable with data from registers from different countries, and our conclusion was that such a comparison could only be performed incompletely.

We present the development and results of a nationwide, prospective, observational follow-up programme including patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register. The programme started in 2002 and has gradually expanded to include all units performing total hip replacement in Sweden. The self-administered PROMs protocol comprises the EQ-5D instrument, the Charnley class categorisation and visual analogue scales for pain and satisfaction. These current analyses include 34 960 total hip replacements with complete pre- and one-year post-operative questionnaires.

Patients eligible for total hip replacement generally report low health-related quality of life and suffer from pain. One year post-operatively the mean EQ-5D index increased to above the level of an age- and gender-matched population, with a considerable reduction of pain (p < 0.001). Females, younger patients and those with Charnley category C reported a lower EQ-5D index pre-operatively than males, older patients and Charnley category A or B, respectively (all p < 0.001). In a multivariable regression analysis Charnley category C, male gender and higher age were associated with less improvement in health-related quality of life (p < 0.001).

Nationwide implementation of a PROMs programme requires a structured organisation and effective data capture. Patients’ response rates to the Registry are good. The continuous collection of PROMs permits local and national improvement work and allows for further health-economic evaluation.

Online case discussion may be used for the education of orthopaedic surgeons. The authors developed a website for discussing orthopaedic cases nine years ago and describe its management. It currently has 20 000 registered users.

We have compared four computer-assisted methods to measure penetration of the femoral head into the acetabular component in total hip replacement. These were the Martell Hip Analysis suite 7.14, Rogan HyperOrtho, Rogan View Pro-X and Roman v1.70. The images used for the investigation comprised 24 anteroposterior digital radiographs and 24 conventional acetate radiographs which were scanned to provide digital images. These radiographs were acquired from 24 patients with an uncemented total hip replacement with a follow-up of approximately eight years (mean 8.1; 6.3 to 9.1). Each image was measured twice by two blinded observers. The mean annual rates of penetration of the femoral head measured in the eight-year single image analysis were: Martell, 0.24 (SD 0.19); HyperOrtho, 0.12 (SD 0.08); View Pro-X, 0.12 (SD 0.06); Roman, 0.12 (SD 0.07). In paired analysis of the six-month and eight-year radiographs: Martell, 0.35 (SD 0.22); HyperOrtho, 0.15 (SD 0.13); View Pro-X, 0.11 (SD 0.06); Roman, 0.11 (SD 0.07). The intra- and inter-observer variability for the paired analysis was best for View Pro-X and Roman software, with intraclass correlations of 0.97, 0.87 and 0.96, 0.87, respectively, and worst for HyperOrtho and Martell, with intraclass correlations of 0.46, 0.13 and 0.33, 0.39, respectively.

The Roman method proved the most precise and the most easy to use in clinical practice and the software is available free of charge. The Martell method showed the lowest precision, indicating a problem with its edge detection algorithm on digital images.