Failure of acetabular autogenous grafts in total hip arthroplasty. Increasing incidence

We reported previously on the application of an autogenous femoral-head graft to the acetabulum during total hip arthroplasty for compensation of marked osseous deficiency in patients who had arthritis secondary to severe congenital dysplasia or dislocation of the hip. An average of seven years postoperatively, the graft seemed to have been a successful adjunct to the arthroplasty. Five years later, to assess our long-term results, we reviewed the findings in the same forty-six hips (thirty-seven patients) that we had studied previously. An average of 11.8 years after the total replacement and use of the autogenous femoral-head graft, nine hips (20 per cent) needed a second operation because the acetabular fixation had failed. Two had had a resection arthroplasty and seven, a complex revision. In one additional hip, a resection arthroplasty was done for infection that had developed after operative reattachment of the greater trochanter. In twelve of the remaining thirty-six hips, there was definite radiographic evidence of acetabular loosening. Thus, the total incidence of loosening of the acetabular component was 46 per cent (twenty-one hips). The average time from the index operation to the first definite radiographic evidence that the fixation had failed was 6.4 years (range, 2.9 to 12.7 years). While we recognize that application of a bulk autogenous graft to the acetabulum is useful when the acetabular bone stock is extremely deficient, we no longer recommend the use of bulk corticocancellous autogenous grafts in other situations.