Diagnostic study, Level III (Study of nonconsecutive patients; without consistently applied reference "gold" standard). See the Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Patient demand and surgeon interest in hip resurfacing has recently increased, but surgeons in the United States are relatively inexperienced with this procedure. We determined the learning curve associated with hip resurfacing and compared the rate of early complications of the first 650 hip resurfacings between five experienced hip surgeons and a national safety survey database study we previously published, which included 89 surgeons and 537 hip resurfacings. Patient demographics and adverse events were recorded. Specific features on pre-and postoperative radiographs were measured in a blinded fashion by a single observer. There were 13 major complications (2.0%), which is 3.7 times lower than our national safety survey complication rate of 7.4%. All fractures occurred in the first 25 cases performed. The complication rate was higher for the first 25 procedures (5.6%) compared with the second 25 procedures (1
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