According to a recent study in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for at least 6 months after a total hip or knee replacement may cut the risk of revision surgery by almost 40%. This potential reduction in revision rate becomes even more impressive when one considers estimates that put the number of knee replacements in the US at close to 3.5 million annually by the year 2030.
The study, which compared joint-replacement outcomes in 2,700 female HRT users with outcomes in 8,100 matched nonusers, found no difference in revision rates relative to HRT use before surgery.
Elena Losina, PhD., JBJS deputy editor for methodology and biostatistics, called this study “well designed and executed” in an article in Arthritis Today. But she was quick to add that “to consider these results more definitively in clinical practice, they need to be confirmed and reproduced in a multicenter randomized controlled trial.”
