Drug extends the life of a hip replacement

Bisphophonates, a drug used to prevent the loss of bone material, could extend the lifespan of the replacement joint used in the hips.

A hip replacement can dramatically improve a patient's mobility. While these replacements can last for decades, some will fail in a few years. This failure is due to the face that when the bone around the implant dissolves by the body, causing the implant to become loose.

Researchers are testing the theory that bisphosphonates will prevent this loosening. Bisphosphonates are commonly used to treat bone diseases like osteoporosis, but in this case, it would reduce bone resorption.

At the University of Oxford, the researchers discovered that those patients who received the bisphosphonates were linked to a near double increase in implant survival time, meaning that for "every 107 replacement patients taking bisphosphonates, one revision surgery would be avoided."

The researchers then explained that the success could be due to the face that the drug therapy suppresses long term inflammatory response around the implant after surgery, which often results in bone loss and loosening of the implant.

Studies are still in progress to confirm these findings.

I found this article to be quite intriguing due to the fact that my grandma has undergone hip replacement surgery, and the need for replacement later in life may be actually in the near future. With the recent findings, the future for hip replacements could be a one-time surgery with a biosphosphonate drug therapy. Which, I believe, is a better deal than to undergo a second replacement surgery to fix the loosening of the implant.

Read the full story here:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/238815.php