Patients undergoing a total hip replacement have an elevated risk of stroke in the weeks following the operation, researchers found.
Danish patients who underwent the procedure over a 10-year period were more likely than those who had not received a hip or knee replacement to have an ischemic stroke (HR 4.69, 95% CI 3.12 to 7.06) or hemorrhagic stroke (HR 4.40, 95% CI 2.01 to 9.62) in the first 2 postoperative weeks, according to Frank de Vries, PharmD, PhD, of the Utrecht Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Netherlands, and colleagues.
The stroke risk declined rapidly thereafter, becoming comparable in the two groups after 6 to 12 weeks, the researchers reported online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
"Risk assessment of stroke in individual patients undergoing total hip replacement (i.e., evaluate other risk factors for stroke) should be considered during the first 6 to 12 weeks," de Vries and colleagues wrote.
It is known that stroke is a serious complication from total hip replacements seen at a rate as high as 0.6%. Comparisons had not previously been made, however, between patients undergoing the operation and nonsurgical controls.
12/11/2012 : By Todd Neale / Med Page Today.
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