[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A recent meta-analysis (a study combining results of many studies) has confirmed that patient smoking and surgery are a bad combination.    They demonstrated  in smokers hip replacement have 3.7 times the infection rate, 3 times the rate of joint replacement loosening, and 2.6x the risk of revision surgery compared with non smokers.

It has been known for a long time that smoking reduces the success in non union and infection related surgery to a point that the surgery probably shouldn’t be attempted.  Ironically, the cost of smoking for a year in Australia is about the same as a year of private health insurance.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25909602

~ Mr David Mitchell[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]