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Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a relatively common and potentially life threatening complication after major hip surgery. There are two main types of prophylaxis: chemical and mechanical. Chemical prophylaxis is very effective but causes bleeding complications in surgical wounds and remote organs. On the other hand, mechanical methods are free of hemorrhagic complications but are less effective. We hypothesized that mechanical prophylaxis is effective enough for Asians in whom VTE occurs less frequently. This study evaluated the effect of intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) in the prevention of VTE after major hip surgery., Methods: Incidences of symptomatic VTE after primary total hip arthroplasty with and without application of IPC were compared. A total of 379 patients were included in the final analysis. The IPC group included 233 patients (106 men and 127 women) with a mean age of 54 years. The control group included 146 patients (80 men and 66 women) with a mean age of 53 years. All patients took low-dose aspirin for 6 weeks after surgery. IPC was applied to both legs just after surgery and maintained all day until discharge. When a symptom or a sign suspicious of VTE, such as swelling or redness of the foot and ankle, Homans' sign, and dyspnea was detected, computed tomography (CT) angiogram or duplex ultrasonogram was performed., Results: Until 3 months after surgery, symptomatic VTE occurred in three patients in the IPC group and in 6 patients in the control group. The incidence of VTE was much lower in the IPC group (1.3%) than in the control group (4.1%), but the difference was not statistically significant. Complications associated with the application of IPC were not detected in any patient. Patients affected by VTE were older and hospitalized longer than the unaffected patients., Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that IPC might be an effective and safe method for the prevention of postoperative VTE., Competing Interests: CONFLICT OF INTEREST: No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

We analyzed national data collected by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service in Korea from 2007 to 2011; 1) to document procedural numbers and procedural rate of bipolar hemiarthroplasty (BH), primary and revision total hip arthroplasties (THAs), 2) to stratify the prevalence of each procedure by age, gender, and hospital type, and quantified, 3) to estimate the revision burden and evaluate whether the burden is changed over time. Our final study population included 60,230 BHs, 40,760 primary THAs, and 10,341 revision THAs. From 2007 to 2011, both the number and the rate of BHs, primary THAs increased steadily, whereas there was no significant change in revision THAs. Over the 5 yr, the rate of BHs and primary THAs per 100,000 persons significantly increased by 33.2% and 21.4%, respectively. The number of revision THAs was consistent over time. The overall annual revision burden for THA decreased from 22.1% in 2007 to 18.9% in 2011. In contrast to western data, there were no changes in the number and rate of revision THAs, and the rates of primary and revision THAs were higher for men than those for women. Although 5 yr is a short time to determine a change in the revision burden, there have been significant decreases in some age groups.

Background: In Western countries, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), are relatively common after THA and many surgeons recommend routine pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis. There is some suggestion in the literature that the incidences of DVT and PE may be lower in East Asian patients. Therefore, it would be important to establish the incidences in a large number of East Asian patients who did not receive pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis., Purpose: We therefore determined the incidence of DVT and PE and evaluated the associated risk factors in a series of East Asian patients who underwent primary THA without pharmacologic prophylaxis., Methods: We retrospectively evaluated all 861 patients who underwent 992 elective primary THAs from May 2003 to December 2009. We identified patients with symptomatic DVT, symptomatic PE, and fatal PE. For potential risk factors we considered age, gender, body mass index (BMI), administration of aspirin, type of anesthesia, operation time, approach, simultaneous bilateral THAs, and duration of immobilization between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients., Results: We identified eight patients with symptomatic DVT, one of whom also had a symptomatic PE; there were no cases of fatal PE. The incidences of fatal PE, symptomatic PE, and symptomatic DVT were 0 %, 0.1 %, and 0.8 %, respectively. Longer duration of immobilization predicted symptomatic DVT or PE., Conclusions: East Asian patients have a low incidence of symptomatic DVT and PE and virtually no fatal PEs after primary THA. The incidences and risk factors should be taken into consideration when deciding whether to prophylactically treat these patients with pharmacologic agents., Level of Evidence: Level IV, prognostic study. See the Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.