“The excellent performance of the A2® short stock in the EPRD Annual Report 2019 proves once again how important a transparent and good communication between developers, users and the manufacturer is.” says Mario Frank, Head of Development & Regulatory of ARTIQO. “Training, dissemination of application-related information, highly specialized preparations and courses under expert guidance are the key to success”.

ARTIQO’s A2® short stem has a probability of failure of 1.1 after one year and 1.5 after two years, making the A2® short stem one of the leaders among 48 cementless hip stems. Data on the A2® short socket are not yet available for a longer period of time.

The average probability of failure of cementless sockets is 2.8 after one year and 3.2 after two years with a range of 1.1 – 5.0 after one year and 1.5 – 5.8 after two years.

Basically, the EPRD annual report shows that the probability of failure for total hip endoprostheses with cementless short shafts is lower in the first years than for cementless standard shafts. Supported by these good results, the use of short sockets (in patients under 70 years of age – the main clientele for short sockets) has increased significantly: The number of patients with short shaft implantation included in the EPRD last year is almost five times as high as three years ago.

More information about the A2® short stock can be found here.

A total of 150,284 initial implantations of total hip endoprostheses in 2018 were reported to the EPRD. The proportion of completely cementless anchorages has again increased to 78.6% (compared to 74.8% in 2014). The number of short shafts has further increased to currently 9.7% (6.6% in 2015), i.e. more than 20,000 short shafts are implanted in Germany, and the trend is rising: Although the overall share is still small, there are clinics in which short sockets are already used more frequently than standard sockets.

Conclusion: Cementless short shafts are an excellent option for the implantation of total hip endoprostheses. The latest data of the EPRD Annual Report 2019 show that the A2® Short Socket from ARTIQO is in the top group of all cementless fittings with a very low probability of failure after one or two years. No data are available for a longer period of time, but there is no evidence of a declining performance..