It was a great pleasure to be invited to participate and present some cases at the inaugural modern hip resurfacing meeting and reconnect with so many old friends and colleagues from meetings in the heyday of hip resurfacing.

The resurgence of interest in hip resurfacing as a viable option for a broader range of people was the theme for the day at the first Modern Hip Resurfacing meeting hosted by my good friend and colleague Prof Justin Cobb and his amazing team.

The event was supported by many actively engaged industry leaders including MatOrtho, CeramTec, JointMedica, JRI, Lefkos Stravros Zimmer Biomet and Medacta as well as the Cleveland Clinic group.

The educational program was extraordinarily interesting and even after performing resurfacing for 23 years, there was much that was new to me.

New joint registry results from multiple nations confirmed the excellent long term reliability of resurfacing in larger males, which was so reassuring to many of us who have continued to provide this service despite the dip in enthusiasm from many sectors over the last 15 years. 

Most illuminating of all was the repetitive evidence of the extraordinary difference in mortality rates between people who have undergone hip resurfacing versus those who have had a total hip replacement.

Despite every statistical adjustment for differences in the base health of the patients at the time of surgery, there is still a dramatically higher risk of death at 10 years following surgery in people who have had a hip replacement compared to those who have had hip resurfacing.

This difference has been noted in numerous studies and was elegantly presented by Dr Peter Brooks from the Cleveland Clinic, Indian River, USA.

Whilst the difference is slightly less marked in those having uncemented total hip replacement than those having cemented hip replacement, the differences are still dramatic.

The possible reasons for this improvement was discussed at length, but remains inconclusive.