Result Anaslysis of Hip Arthroplasty Registers

Abstract

In the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Norway and Finland, we find the oldest nationwide arthroplasty registers (ARs). Sweden established the first National Hip Arthroplasty Register (NHAR) worldwide in 1979. The mission of the first national hip AR, the Swedish NHAR, was to improve the outcome of total hip arthroplasty (THA) [30]. Throughout the 1970s, new hip implants had been introduced without documentation from clinical studies. After being used for more than 10 years, several of the prostheses were identified with high failure rates, but at the time they had already been used in large numbers of patients. Intending to identify inferior implants as soon as possible, several more countries have started national ARs in the last 15 years. Initiated by their national orthopaedic associations, Finland (1980) and Norway (1987) both started during the 1980s, and the Danish Hip Arthroplasty Register (DHAR) [41] followed in 1994. In the larger European States with 50-80 million inhabitants (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain), national registers have not so far been established. Outside Europe, national registers were established later. Following a pilot study in 1997 in Christchurch, a national joint register was established by the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association in January 2000. In March 1998, the Federal Government provided funding to the Australian Orthopaedic Association (AOA) to establish the National Joint Replacement Registry (NJRR). The Canadian Joint Replacement Registry (CJRR) was officially launched at the Canadian Orthopaedic Association annual meeting in June 2000 and is managed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Even the USA now finds that the time has come for a national joint replacement register, and planning for pilot projects for implementation has begun [46] (Table 14.1).