"Overwhelmingly relief of pain is excellent." Doctor Thomas P. Sculco, Surgeon-in-Chief at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, explains many of the common benefits and risks of hip replacement surgery.

Dr. Sculco



Like any operation, there are risks.



You need to know what's the benefit, what's the good with this operation and what's the bad with this operation. I spend a lot of time talking to patients about that and I think patients need to be informed. What's the upside. Well the upside with hip replacement surgery, I think you can tell most patients, is that overwhelmingly relief of pain is excellent. Return of function, being able to get back to what you want to do, motion which is often lost in the hip, will return. So that's the upside to the procedure what's the downside? Well like any operation, there are risks. And the risks are: patient has a medical problem related to the surgery. Heart problem, lung problem. These do occur, and it's import that the patient ask the surgeon: what's the incidence of this at your hospital? What is the infection rate with a hip replacement, in your institution? Now just to get a better feel on what those numbers are. And what the potential risk is.