If a surgeon performs 200 procedures per year, he/she will have to see 800 patients for follow-up by year 5 and 1300 patients per year by year 10. Normal time constraints make this implausible. When do total hip arthroplasty (THA) patients have the greatest need for follow-up? We reviewed 8331 primary THAs to determine the greatest risk of failure across time. Patients failed with the greatest ratio at 1 year or earlier, followed by 10 and 12 years postoperatively. The median time to failure for all hips was 8.8 years, the average time to failure was 9.2 years, and 75% of failures occurred by 13.0 years. The most common failure mechanisms were due to the cup (5.0%), dislocation (3.2%), cup and stem (1.7%), infection (0.4%), and the stem (0.4%). Based on the most common failure mechanisms, it is recommended to evaluate patients at the 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 7 years, 10 years, 12 years, 18 years, and 25 years postoperatively.
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