A Concise Format for Reporting the Longer-Term Follow‐up Status of Patients Managed with Total Hip Arthroplasty

The Journal is receiving an increasing number of manuscripts that report longer-term follow-up results of total hip arthroplasty. Many of these reports extend findings that were originally published in The Journal and are unnecessarily long because they repeat a great deal of information that is already available. Therefore, to provide a guide to investigators, we sought to identify the essential information to be included in such a report. Our goal was for The Journal to convey the most meaningful information to its readers while saving both authors and readers from redundancy.

We created this format through an iterative process. In May 2001, we solicited opinions regarding the essential content of such a report from twelve authorities in total hip arthroplasty who either are frequent contributors to The Journal or serve as reviewers and/or editors. We collated their responses and then discussed their consensus views at a meeting of the Deputy Editors of The Journal in September 2001. The format presented at the end of this editorial represents the synthesis of recommendations from experts in the field of hip reconstruction and from orthopaedic editors active in clinical research, basic research, and outcomes assessment.

The format is intended to be a template that, while limiting space, leaves abundant opportunity for authors to state their major findings and the importance of those findings. We strongly encourage the inclusion of certain outcomes data that, although not currently included in many follow-up studies of total hip arthroplasty, will, we believe, become part of every report after a reasonable transition period. Specifically, investigators should use the WOMAC (Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index), a validated, patient-administered instrument that assesses the effect of arthroplasty on pain, stiffness, and function in patients with osteoarthritis. The inclusion of data derived with this index should allow more meaningful comparisons of the fates of individual cohorts over time, facilitate comparison of results from different centers using different prostheses, and enable more accurate meta-analyses.

Soon, we will develop similar formats for reporting longer-term follow-up results of other reconstructive procedures.

Over the past decade, steady progress has been made toward the adoption of standardized nomenclature and validated instruments for reporting the results of total hip arthroplasty1. We believe that the step taken by The Journal will encourage further advances toward that goal and thus help both investigators and readers to clarify the abundant information regarding total hip arthroplasty with dependable and powerful tools.