Death rate from hip replacement almost halved in eight years

Numbers of deaths after total hip replacement fell substantially in England and Wales from 2003 to 2011, a retrospective analysis has found.1

Death within 90 days of hip replacement surgery is rare, but the study in the Lancet showed that it dropped from 0.56% in 2003 to 0.29% in 2011, after data were adjusted for age, sex, and comorbidity.

The researchers used the UK’s national joint registry, the biggest joint replacement database in the world, to analyse more than …