More adolescents and adults younger than 21 are undergoing hip replacement surgeries, according to a study from New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery.
The study, published in The Journal of Arthroplasty, found the number of young patients who had hip replacements rose from 347 in 2000 to 551 in 2016 while the total pediatric population in the U.S. remained stable.
Researchers used the Kids' Inpatient Database of more than 4,200 hospitals across 46 states. They looked for elective and non-elective hip replacement procedures in patients younger than 21. The mean age of young patients undergoing hip replacements was just older than 17, and most were white and had private insurance.
Common diagnoses for young patients were osteonecrosis, osteoarthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
The study concludes: "The number of THAs in patients under 21 in the United States has increased over the past two decades and these procedures are increasingly performed in urban teaching hospitals. The decrease in THA for inflammatory arthritis in this population likely reflects improvements in medical management during the study period."