PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long-term clinical and radiographic outcomes of the Balgrist total hip replacement cup. METHODS: We report the results of a retrospective review of 195 total hip prostheses with Balgrist cup implanted in 178 patients. There were 59 men and 119 women with a mean age at surgery of 52.3 years (range, 19-72). Cox regression was used to determine the influence of independent variables on the survivorship of the prosthesis. RESULTS: There were 117 (66 %) of 178 patients, and 131 (67 %) of 195 hips available for assessment at a mean follow-up of 17.4 years. A total of 21 patients (22 hips) were lost from follow-up (12 %). A total of 25 patients (27 hips) required some type of re-operation during the follow-up period. Eight of 27 re-operations (30 %) were directly caused by the Balgrist cup failure due to fatigue fracture of the metallic shell (n = 5; 19 %), polyethylene wear (n = 2; 7 %) and aseptic loosening (n = 1; 4 %). The mean polyethylene wear rate was 0.068 mm/year (range, 0.008-0.230; SD = 0.043). The risk of re-operation for any reason was decreased with dysplastic hip as a primary diagnosis (hazard ratio; HR = 0.250; 95 % CI 0.086-0.725) and with greater age at the time of surgery (HR = 0.923; 95 % CI 0.880-0.969). The 19-year survivorship with re-operation for any reason was 75.6 % (95 % CI 67.0-84.2). The 19-year survivorship with re-operation for the Balgrist cup failure was 90.5 % (95 % CI 83.4-97.6). CONCLUSIONS: The Balgrist cup continues to provide excellent clinical and radiological outcomes. This is associated at least in part with a low polyethylene wear rate. The main reason for the Balgrist cup failure is fatigue fracture of the metallic shell.

• MeSH
• Osteoarthritis, Hip surgery   MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Incidence MeSH
• Kaplan-Meier Estimate MeSH
• Cohort Studies MeSH
• Bone Cements MeSH
• Hip Joint diagnostic imaging   surgery   MeSH
• Hip Prosthesis * MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Longitudinal Studies MeSH
• Hip Dislocation surgery   MeSH
• Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip instrumentation   MeSH
• Follow-Up Studies MeSH
• Polyethylene MeSH
• Proportional Hazards Models MeSH
• Prosthesis Design * MeSH
• Radiography MeSH
• Reoperation instrumentation   statistics & numerical data   MeSH
• Retrospective Studies MeSH
• Aged MeSH
• Treatment Outcome MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Aged MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Evaluation Study MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Names of Substances
• Bone Cements MeSH
• Polyethylene MeSH