Survey to orthopedics surgeons in Italy about Leg length discrepancy and total hip arthroplasty: postoperative management

Abstract

Abstract Background We created a Survey for Italian orthopaedics surgeons on how they approach leg length discrepancy (LLD) when dealing with primary total hip arthroplasty. Aim of the study was to show how surgeons manage LLD and follow literature recommendations during clinical practice. Methods The Survey was composed of 25 questions divided in 4 sections: surgeon’s profile, preoperative and intraoperative evaluation, postoperative management. In this paper we report absolute and relative frequencies of answers to section 4 “postoperative management”. Then regarding the treatment of residual LLD we reported if trauma surgeons (TR) and experts in reconstructive surgery (RS) had higher odds ratio (OR) to give the “literature based” answers than orthopaedics physicians (OP) Results Only four questions received more than 70% of agreement on one of the answers. The OR to give the “literature based” answer taking OP as reference was 1.57 for TR and 1.72 for RS for 10 mm LLD at first follow up (FU) and 1.23 TR and 1.32 RS when 20 mm. When 10 mm LLD at 3 months FU the OR was 0.88 TR and 1.15 RS. The OR for treatment of LLD after the first examination of a new patient was 2.16 TR and 1.85 RS. Conclusions LLD is a debated topic with no definitive recommendations. Many decisions still depend on tradition, treatment of LLD during clinical practice often differs from literature recommendations.