Anterior or Posterior Hip Replacement, Which Is Better?

Location of Incision:

The surgical steps of both hip replacement approaches are different from each other. Both have different short term and long term effects on the human body and provide different benefits to the patient's body. Incision location is one of the most significant differences between anterior and posterior hip replacement surgeries.

• Anterior hip replacement surgery: : In this process, an incision is made at the front of the hip; sometimes, this incision can be made horizontally. This incision generally has its initiation from the pelvic bone's topmost point and goes down until the top of the thigh.
• Posterior hip replacement surgery: In this process, a curved incision is made on the side and back of the hip. This incision curves behind the greater trochanter, which is the knobby bit of bone that sticks out at the side from the top of the thigh bone.

The location of the incision will completely determine the postsurgical scar.

Muscles Affected:

This is another difference between anterior and posterior hip replacement surgeries. After creating a surgical incision, the muscles must be pushed aside or cut to access the hip's ball and socket.

• Anterior hip replacement: : In this replacement, the surgeon works between the muscles, pushing them aside to get to the hip joint. This natural separation enables the surgeon to access the hip joint with minimal or no muscle cutting and works between muscles supplied by different nerves.
• Posterior hip replacement surgery: In this hip replacement approach, a surgeon cut muscles and other soft tissue at the back of the hip. Several soft tissues are involved in this process, including The tensor fascia lata, which is soft fibrous tissue located at the top of the outer thigh and works with the IT band to help stabilize the hip and knee. The large gluteus maximus muscle allows a person to extend and rotate the thigh outward and also helps stabilize the pelvis and keep the body erect. It is joint to the part of a body, also called fascia lata. The external rotators are small, short muscles of the hip which connect the top of the femur to the pelvis. These muscles prevent the femur from dislocating out the back of the hip socket. And provide hip stability.

The posterior approach produced greater muscular strength than the direct lateral approach, which resulted in a greater increase in abduction strength than the anterior approach.
According to the 3-month follow-up research, no statistically significant differences
between these replacements were found. The operated legs were 18% weaker in leg press and 15% weaker in abduction than the unoperated legs, and the results were similar between them.

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Technical Ease of Surgery:

All hip replacements are required to dislocate the hip joints and shape the bones to implant prosthetic hip joint components. Both hip replacement approach present specific technical ease.

• The anterior approach: : This hip replacement process provides a limited view of the hip joint to the surgeon during the surgery. This process makes the surgery technically challenging as it provides less view, so the technical ease of this process is challenging.
• The posterior approach: This hip replacement approach provides a better view of the hip joint, and the surgeon can make the surgery easily. So the technical ease of this approach is less challenging than the anterior approach.

Based on the technical ease difference before applying the anterior approach, adequate training is essential because an immense technical difficulty is associated with this approach.
According to the research, two years after r surgeries, 99.4% of patients said they had relief from pain, and 98.8% said their ability to move was improved.