CURRENT STATUS AND PROSPECTS FOR CONSERVATIVE STEM PROSTHESES IN HIP-REPLACEMENT SURGERY.

Enormous progress has been made in the field of hip replacement surgery over the past decades, and challenges once thought insurmountable have been overcome. Alongside a natural evolution of prostheses and surgical techniques, there has been a progressive increase in the number of younger patients undergoing this type of surgery. Given the longer life expectancy of such patients and the high risk of revision associated with hip replacement surgeries, orthopedic surgeons and researchers are increasingly pursuing techniques and devices that can be used with utmost respect for the natural anatomy and biomechanics of the hip. Consequently, short-stem prostheses are being widely rec- ommended. This type of prosthesis allows the preservation of the femoral neck, there- fore offering the possibility to use conventional prostheses also in eventual revision sur- geries instead of specific revision prostheses, offering multiple benefits for the patient. We report results obtained in eleven patients implanted with conservative Proxima stem implant.