Ballarat Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine - Hip Surgery Specialists
Ballarat OSM are specialists in hip surgeries. These include replacement and resurfacing for a number of conditions.
Useful Information
-
Novar Specialist Healthcare
109 Webster Street
Lake Wendouree VIC 3350 - T | 03 5332 2969
- F | 03 5332 2003
- admin@ballaratosm.com.au
Hip Surgery Options & Information
Hip Replacement Surgery
Direct Anterior Hip Replacement
An approach that’s been advocated as providing faster recovery is the Direct Anterior Approach. Some variations of it include the bikini incision. We haven’t seen any faster recovery than our regular approach, but it probably has advantages of a lower dislocation rate, better pelvic floor strength, and less restrictions after surgery.
As with our miniposterior approach most patients are walking with one crutch the day after surgery. A disadvantage of the approach is a higher risk of fractures – to minimise this risk some patients will have a cemented hip replacement.
Hip Resurfacing
Birmingham, although the ceramic-ceramic resurfacings are showing promise, and are now available in Australia. The preferred patients have good bone quality, are of normal weight and height typically over 170cm in order to fit the sizes that are proven.
The surgery is more complex that hip replacement, the surgeon needs above average results to justify resurfacing.
- Industrial strength operation
- Exceeding low incidence of dislocation
- More accurate leg length
- Lowers risk of blood clot complications
- Lower risk of thigh pain

Hip Arthroscopy
Some conditions in the hip joint can be improved or rectified under camera control. These are typically younger patients with labral tears, “Cam” or “Pincer” lesions, or loose bodies.
The surgery is undertaken under general anaesthesia, and usually involves an overnight stay in hospital and usually requires time on crutches afterward.
Birmingham Hip Resurfacing
Hip replacements may fail in the long term for a wide variety of reasons, based on the design of the original implant and technique of implanting it. Whilst the revision rate of modern hip replacements is approach 0.5% per year, there are still older style replacements more likely to need re-operation.
Our practice over the last decade has performed over 200 revision operations.
Single Stage Revision Joint Replacement for Infection
Infection adds a large number of difficulties to fixing a joint replacement that has gone wrong. Some patients are not suitable for single stage surgery, and are better treated with two operations six weeks or more apart.
An infected hip replacement can be like having an infected splinter. It is almost impossible to eradicate the infection without removing the foreign material.
A traditional viewpoint is that the foreign material is removed at one operation, and some weeks/months later, a second operation undertaken to re-implant a new hip replacement (a so called two stage operation).
A single stage operation does it all in one go. The theory is that a new implant and antibiotic bone cement will restore function faster, although six months of antibiotics by mouth are usually necessary as well.
Our practice offers both single and two stage operations based on the individual patient’s circumstances.
Long Stem Hip Replacement of Tumour
Sometimes bone is weakened by tumour. This can cause severe pain and even fracture of the bone. The diagnosis may be obvious on x-ray, or it can be difficult to diagnose. Different surgeons will solve this problem in different ways, often more complex than traditional hip replacement.
The stem down the femur needs to be longer to avoid unexpected failure by the bone breaking, or giving way at the tip of the stem. The pelvis side sometimes needs a reinforcing cage or screws. Both components are usually cemented.
Leading Treatments & Surgeries in Ballarat
- All
- Sports Medicine
- Orthopaedics
- Novar Specialists