Women are more likely than men to undergo total hip arthroplasty (THA). Unfortunately, they're also more likely than men to need a repeat operation, new research has shown.

While the risk of THA revision is low, women were 29% more likely than men to need a repeat operation within 3 years: 2.3% of women compared with 1.9% of men, according to FDA-financed research published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers looked at more than 35,000 operations at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. Researchers defined revision surgery as removal or exhange of at least 1 prosthetic component.

The reasons for the higher THA revision rates in women than men are unclear, although the study disproved the notion that the size of the femoral head increases the risk of THA revision for women. The thinking goes that a smaller head is more likely to dislocate. But even after statistically controlling for head sizes, the study found that women still had a 15% higher risk of revision than men.

Dan O'Connor