Total Hip Replacement

Total hip replacement, or total hip arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure that replaces the hip joint with a prosthetic implant, substituting artificial components for both the acetabulum, the hip socket, and the femoral head, the ball at the top of the thigh bone; the operation is most often performed to relieve arthritis pain or to treat certain hip fractures. The British surgeon Sir John Charnley developed the modern low-friction design at Wrightington Hospital in England in 1962, combining a stainless steel femoral stem and head, a polyethylene socket component and bone cement to fix the parts in place, a combination that came to dominate the field by the 1970s. Hip replacement is today among the most frequently performed orthopedic operations, and roughly 58 percent of replacements are still functioning 25 years after surgery.