What to ask your surgeon?

It is normal to be afraid of surgery. If given a choice, all of us would stay away from surgery. Our reasons for avoiding surgery are obvious. Surgeries come with a baggage of complications. Rarely a complication is severe enough to offset any potential benefit promised by the surgery. The complication itself becomes a bigger problem than the original illness. A complication can happen with the best surgeon having the purest intentions. Therefore it is wise to be scared of surgery. 

Yet we often find ourselves facing surgery. The truth is many problems cannot be solved effectively unless tackled by surgery. Surgery today is far more successful due to improved knowledge, experience and technology. Many patients have undergone surgery and have benefitted tremendously. So if a patient is offered surgery, how should he/she approach the situation?

The first question to be answered is 'Is my problem bad enough?' This is an obvious question and most patients address it correctly. Doing a major surgery for minor issues is a strict 'NO'. Often the alternative non surgical treatments are equally effective. Even though this is a simple decision to make, sometimes patients get carried away by social and economic pressures. I find patients asking for surgery just because they have seen a friend benefit from it or they have the money to buy it! Surgeries are of 2 types: the 'life saving' surgery and the 'quality of life' surgery. With life saving surgeries, the decision is easy. The problem is with 'quality of life' surgeries. For example: a decision to do angioplasty (heart) surgery is easy as it is life saving but a decision to do knee replacement is difficult as it is done to improve quality of life. 

The second question is 'what is the risk-benefit analysis?' Is the benefit promised by the surgery more than the risk of something going wrong or a complication happening. The best surgeries are the ones that offer good results with little risk. For e.g. Knee Replacement completely solves the patients problem (huge benefits) and has a low complication rate. At the other end of the spectrum are surgeries that are new, experimental and unproven. Beware of these as failure rates are high and complications are more.  In between are the surgeries that have proven good results but with a high complication rate. In this situation, I encourage patients to understand the risks completely by a detailed dialogue with the surgeon. 

The next question is 'How good is the surgeon?' This is a difficult question for the patient to answer. As a general rule a specialist will be better. Patients gauge a surgeons skill by his success. Though patients don't have a better way, this method of finding a good surgeon is flawed. Success or fame is multi factorial and a 'famous' surgeon may not necessarily be the most skilled. One effective way is to speak to patients already operated by the surgeon. They often give lots of insight and improve your confidence. 

The last question is 'Have I done my research?' We do a lot of research when we have to buy a new car or a new house. Similarly I encourage patients to do research when they are facing a surgery. Today is the age of information technology and all is available on the Internet. Details of the illness, the success rate of the surgery, the potential complications, the experience of other patients etc need to be researched by patients looking at a surgical option. The procedure should be discussed in detail with your surgeon. I see patients asking questions like 'Is there any guarantee for this surgery?' The answer is obvious and the surgeons who say 'YES' are lying. While this is not a sensible question to ask, there is a list of questions that every patient must ask his/her surgeon. 'What is the percentage of success of the surgery?', 'What are the complications?', 'What are the chances of something going wrong?', 'If a complication occurs, what is its treatment?', 'What is the recovery time?', 'How long will the surgical pain last?' are some of those questions.  

To conclude, everyone would like to avoid surgery but sometimes we cannot. If facing surgery, we should arm ourselves with knowledge beforehand so that we can take intelligent decisions and avoid facing nasty surprises later. 

Hip Replacement

Arthritis affects the hip joint just as it affects the knee. Hip arthritis is less common in Indians and Asians. One disease that we commonly see is avascular necrosis (AVN). In AVN the blood supply to the head of the femur (thigh bone) is cut off due to some pathology. The most common reasons for AVN are alcohol intake and steroid medication. The dead femoral head loses its round shape and becomes flat and deformed. This leads to destruction of the hip joint and arthritis. Patients have severe pain in the hip. Movements become restricted and very painful.   In advance stages patients have difficulty in walking. They walk slowly with a limp usually with support of a stick or walker.

There are many non surgical and surgical treatments of AVN in the early stages. However in the late stages the only solution is total hip replacement (THR). Similarly end stage arthritis of the hip due to any cause can be successfully treated by hip replacement alone. Hip replacement has been around for more than 60 years. In this time hip replacement has seen a tremendous evolution. Hip replacement can be partial or total. In partial hip replacement, only the ball (head of femur) is replaced. The original cup of the patient is retained. This surgery is typically done for older patients who fracture the neck of femur (hip fracture).

In total hip replacement, both the ball and socket is replaced. This surgery is done for hip arthritis where both ball and socket are damaged. Originally in total hip replacement both components (stem and cup) were fixed to bone with bone cement (cemented hip). The cemented stem (which holds the ball) works very well and has a long life. However the cemented cup lasts only 10 to 12 years. The need to improve life of the prosthesis led to the evolution of uncemented hips. In uncemented design, the cup and the stem are fitted into the bone without using cement. The surface of the stem and cup is made very rough or porous. This allows the bone to grow into the surface. As a result of this bone growth, the life of the prosthesis improves tremendously.  

Originally in total hip replacement, the ball was made ofmetal and the cup was made of high density plastic (metal onplastic). The problem with plastic is that it wears out over time. There has been a big improvement in these materials over the years. The original plastic has undergone a series of changes (highly cross linked) which has improved the durability of the plastic. The biggest change has been the introduction of ceramic. Early ceramic was brittle and had issues of breakage. With later generations of ceramic, the breakage problem was solved. By using ceramic heads instead of metal ones, the wear of the plastic cups is reduced (ceramic on plastic). Then came the ceramic cups. By using a ceramic cup and ceramic ball (ceramic on ceramic), there is very little wear of the cup and the life of the prosthesis is improved drastically. Ceramic on ceramic THR is ideal for the younger patient as it is very durable and lasts a long time. However it is a technically sensitive surgery and has to be done perfectly. It is also very expensive.

Total hip replacement is a life altering surgery. After the initial couple of months which are required to recover from the surgery, the patient starts experiencing dramatic relief of pain. Pain literally and magically disappears. In most arthritic conditions of the hip, the leg becomes short and thisshortening is corrected immediately after surgery. Movements become free and painless. Patient is able to walk normally without a limp or pain. Some patients even manage to run after surgery. In short patients become normal after hip replacement surgery and are cured of their arthritis. With modern surgical techniques and newer prosthetic materials and designs, these patients are able to enjoy their hip replacements for a long, long time.