Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Limbs length discrepancy is a common complication after hip arthroplasty, comprehensive measures for preventing limbs length discrepancy can obtain the better clinical results.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical application effect of comprehensive measures for preventing limbs length discrepancy after total hip arthroplasty.
METHODS: 128 patients (136 hips) were selected from the Department of Orthopedics, Changshu No.2 People’s Hospital for analysis, and all the patients received the comprehensive measures to prevent the limbs length discrepancy after total hip arthroplasty. Preoperative limb length assessment, preoperative template plan, intraoperative measurement and comprehensive adjustments were performed to prevent the limbs length discrepancy after total hip arthroplasty. The articles related to the limbs length discrepancy after total hip arthroplasty from 2002 to 2011 were searched in the domestic and foreign databases, and the data were analyzed based on the results of database searches.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The limbs length discrepancy before treatment of 128 patients was range between 0-4.0 cm, averagely 1.6 cm. The length of limbs was measured at 7 days after total hip arthroplasty, and found that 2 patients have the limbs length discrepancy of 1.0-2.0 cm, 12 patients have the limbs length discrepancy of 0.5-1.0 cm, 55 patients have the limbs length discrepancy of 0.3-0.5 cm, and 59 patients have the limbs length discrepancy < 0.3 cm. The average limbs length discrepancy was 0.4 cm. Clinical analyses showed that comprehensive measures can prevent the limbs length discrepancy after total hip arthroplasty effectively. The results of domestic and foreign databases retrieval showed that the domestic and foreign literatures in this field were rare, but the number of foreign foundation supported literatures was more than that of domestic foundation supported literatures.