As a surgeon with a specialty practice in hip and knee replacement surgery, patients rely on my expertise.  Recently, a patient asked me why I no longer use the anterior approach for total hip replacement.  I stopped performing this procedure because in my experience there are no advantages to the surgery, rather a number of potential disadvantages.  Simply, I couldn't continue to use a procedure that I could not trust to deliver every time.

Some patients in need of a hip replacement will ask me if they are candidates for a partial rather than a total hip replacement because it sounds “less invasive.” Unlike the knee (which has three distinct compartments and when one wears out there’s a good chance that only that compartment needs to be replaced), the hip is a single ball (femoral head) and joint socket (acetabulum) and a partial hip replacement often isn’t the optimum choice.

For this final post in the series I will discuss infection, which always must be considered after any type of surgery, especially when the surgical result was not as anticipated or acceptable.

Hip replacement surgery, also called total hip arthroplasty,…