BACKGROUND

Mortality after total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a rare but devastating complication. This meta-analysis aimed to: (1) determine the mortality rates at 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, 5 years and 10 years after THA; (2) identify risk factors and causes of mortality after THA.

METHODS

Pubmed, MEDLINE, Cochrane, EBSCO Host, and Google Scholar databases were queried for studies reporting mortality rates after primary elective, unilateral THA. Inverse-proportion models were constructed to quantify the incidence of all-cause mortality at 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, 5 years and 10 years after THA. Random-effects multiple regression was performed to investigate the potential effect modifiers of age (at time of THA), body mass index, and gender.

RESULTS

A total of 53 studies (3,297,363 patients) were included. The overall mortality rate was 3.9%. The 30-day mortality was 0.49% (95% CI; 0.23-0.84). Mortality at 90 days was 0.47% (95% CI, 0.38-0.57). Mortality increased exponentially between 90 days and 5 years, with a 1-year mortality rate of 1.90% (95% CI, 1.22-2.73) and a 5-year mortality rate of 9.85% (95% CI, 5.53-15.22). At 10-year follow-up, the mortality rate was 16.43% (95% CI, 1.17-22.48). Increasing comorbidity indices, socioeconomic disadvantage, age, anaemia, and smoking were found to be risk factors for mortality. The most commonly reported causes of death were ischaemic heart disease, malignancy, and pulmonary disease.

CONCLUSIONS

All-cause mortality remains low after contemporary THA. However, 1 out of 10 patients and 1 out of 6 patients were deceased after 5 years and 10 years of THA, respectively. As expected, age, but not BMI or gender, was significantly associated with mortality.