UK Analysis Finds High Failure Rates in Larger Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants

LONDON - A British review of the stability of large diameter, metal-on-metal hip implants in more than 30,000 patients resulted in a finding that such systems have a higher than normal failure rate even without considering recalled models such as DePuy's ASR system.

That finding was contained in an analysis entitled "Failure rates of stemmed metal-on-metal hip replacements: analysis of data from the National Joint Registry of England and Wales" published by Alison J. Smith, et al., in the March 13 online edition of The Lancet.

"Our hypothesis that large-diameter metal-on-metal stemmed prostheses would have good implant survival rates has …