Patient-reported outcome after hip dislocation in primary total hip arthroplasty is virtually unknown: a systematic literature review

Most patients have good to excellent outcomes after total hip arthroplasty (THA) due to osteoarthritis (OA). However, severe complications do still occur, and hip dislocation remains one of the most common reasons for revision surgery in the first postoperative years (Bozic et al. 2015, Singh et al. 2016). The incidence of hip dislocation after primary THA ranges from 1% to 10% (Dargel et al. 2014, Jorgensen et al. 2014, Petis et al. 2015, Zhang et al. 2015).

Implant malposition or loosening is an obvious reason for surgical intervention after hip dislocations. In cases with no clear etiology, the non-surgical treatment is often prolonged, and the effect of the dislocation on daily activities and the subjective hip symptoms become more essential. The outcome after revision surgery due to recurrent dislocations is also not encouraging, as 10–34% of the revised patients re-dislocate (Wetters et al. 2013, Jo et al. 2015, Yoshimoto et al. 2017).

In order to advise these patients properly, it is important to know the impact of 1 or recurrent dislocations on the patient’s quality of life and self-experienced hip function. This will contribute to an improved decision-making process for the patients, with no obvious cause for their hip dislocation. Thus, we conducted a systematic review of studies comparing patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in patients with a primary THA due to OA with and without episodes of hip dislocation.