This study was designed to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the use of anhydrous alcohol as an adjuvant treatment for giant cell tumours (GCTs) of long bone. Between October 1989 and January 2004, 42 GCT patients were treated and followed up for an average of 4.1 years (range 1-13 years). Mean patient age was 34 years (range 17-67 years). After curettage and additional burring, anhydrous alcohol was used as an adjuvant therapy in all patients before the bone defect was filled with bone graft or cement. Four patients (9.5%) experienced local recurrence. There were no alcohol-related complications. Recurrence-free probability was 87.6% at final follow-up (13 years) after index surgery by Kaplan-Meyer analysis. Our data suggest that anhydrous alcohol can be used as an effective safe adjuvant for the treatment of GCT of long bone.

BackgroundTotal hip arthroplasty (THA) for severe developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is a technically demanding procedure for arthroplasty surgeons, and it is often difficult to reduce the hip joint without soft tissue release due to severe flexion contracture. We performed two-stage THAs in irreducible hips with expected lengthening of the affected limb after THA of over 2.5 cm or with flexion contractures of greater than 30 degrees in order to place the acetabular cup in the true acetabulum and to prevent neurologic deficits associated with acute elongation of the limb. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the outcomes of cementless THA in patients with severe DDH with a special focus on the results of two-stage THA.MethodsRetrospective clinical and radiological evaluations were done on 17 patients with Crowe type III or IV developmental DDH treated by THA. There were 14 women and 3 men with a mean age of 52.3 years. Follow-ups averaged 52 months. Six cases were treated with two-stage THA followed by surgical hip liberalization and skeletal traction for 2 weeks.ResultsThe mean Harris hip score improved from 40.9 to 89.1, and mean leg length discrepancy (LLD) in 13 unilateral cases was reduced from 2.95 to 0.8 cm. In the patients who underwent two-stage surgery, no nerve palsy was observed, and the single one-stage patient with incomplete peroneal nerve palsy recovered fully 4 weeks postoperatively.ConclusionsThe short-term clinical and radiographic outcomes of primary cementless THA for patients with Crowe type III or IV DDH were encouraging. Two-stage THA followed by skeletal traction after soft tissue release could provide alternative solutions to the minimization of limb shortenings or LLD without neurologic deficits in highly selected patients.

The aim of this study was to examine the incidence and trends of clinically relevant venous thromboembolism (VTE) including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) after hip and knee replacement arthroplasty (HKRA) in Korea. Between January 1 and December 31, 2010, 22,127 hip replacement arthroplasty (HRA) patients and 52,882 knee replacement arthroplasty (KRA) patients were enrolled in the analysis using the administrative claims database of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA). All available parameters including procedure history and clinically relevant VTE during the 90 days after HKRA were identified based on diagnostic and electronic data interchange (EDI) codes. The overall incidence of VTE, DVT, and PE during the 90 days was 3.9% (n=853), 2.7% (n=597), and 1.5% (n=327) after HRA, while the incidence was 3.8% (n=1,990), 3.2% (n=1,699), and 0.7% (n=355) after KRA. The incidence of VTE after HKRA was significantly higher in patients who had previous VTE history (odds ratio [OR], 10.8 after HRA, OR, 8.5 after KRA), chronic heart failure (2.1, 1.3), arrhythmia (1.8, 1.7), and atrial fibrillation (3.4, 2.1) than in patients who did not. The VTE incidence in patients with chemoprophylaxis was higher than that in patients without chemoprophylaxis. The incidence of VTEs revealed in this retrospective review was not low compared with the results of the studies targeting other Asian or Caucasian populations. It may warrant routine prevention including employment of chemoprophylaxis. However, the limitation of the reviewed data mandates large scale prospective investigation to affirm this observation.