Delayed surgery versus nonoperative treatment for hip fractures in post-COVID-19 arena: a retrospective study of 145 patients

About 300 different hip prostheses promoted by a multitude of distributors are available on the European market. Most total hip arthroplasties (THAs) are assembled from components produced by the same manufacturer (non-mixed THAs), yet certain situations require a combination of components from different manufacturers within a single hip prosthesis (mixed THAs). Despite it being against manufacturers’ guidelines (Smith & Nephew 2013, Link 2018), orthopedic surgeons who do this are encouraged by clinical results that are comparable to and sometimes even superior to those obtained without mixed components (Tucker et al. 2015, Peters et al. 2016, Taylor et al. 2018). This mixing and matching is common clinical practice. The question does remain as to whether it is allowable by law. In this annotation paper we assess the legality of mixed THAs based on European law.