What is the “life expectancy” of Birmingham Hip Resurfacing?
What is the “life expectancy” of Birmingham Hip Resurfacing?
A standard hip replacement has approximately 90-95% chance to be still satisfactory and functional at 10 years. The exception is the group of young patients, perhaps between 40-55 y of age, who have a markedly higher failure rate. However, the effect of newer bearing surfaces of the longevity of standard total hip replacement in this group has not been established yet. Most likely, significant improvement will be obtained with these newer designs.The Birmingham hip replacement may have a very low failure rate at 8 years, approximately 1%. More recent data suggests that a slightly higher early failure rate may be present. It is thought that once the first 1-2 years have passed the risk of failure becomes very low.
Based on this, most Birmingham hip replacements are expected to last for a long time, 20 or 30 years would not be unreasonable to assume. However, only time will tell.