Component loosening accounts for 5% to 30% of the revision THA procedures in the United States [2, 3, 10, 14]. The diagnosis may be obvious from history, physical exam, and radiographs when the process has been ongoing for an extended period of time, but early findings often are subtle and sometimes are difficult to definitively establish radiographically. Previous investigations have advocated for nuclear medicine scans to aid in diagnosis of loosening [1, 19], but their benefits remain in question [11, 14, 15]. In the absence of a reliable imaging modality to diagnose component loosening, serum biomarkers have also been proposed as an adjunct diagnostic test for loosening [9], but as yet these have not yet been validated as a reliable diagnostic tool.
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