Pulmonary emboli followed total hip arthroplasty: incidence study.

We compared twenty-five total hip-arthroplasty patients with twenty-five patients who underwent other operations on the lower extremity, with regard to evidence of pulmonary embolism as determined preoperatively and postoperatively from lung perfusion scans, ventilation scans, and pulmonary angiography. Blood gases and serum enzymes also were studied. The over-all incidence of pulmonary embolism was 6 per cent, despite the absence of clinical evidence of that complication. Abnormalities in scans and blood studies were common preoperatively, so that the diagnosis often depended on the detection of additional abnormalities postoperatively.