Length of the Femoral Stem in Arthroplasty Done for Patients With Proximal Femoral Metastatic Lesion

Skeletal metastasis is the third most common site of cancer metastasis after the lungs and liver, almost all patients with metastatic prostate cancer will have bone metastasis. And about 90% of patients dying from breast cancer has skeletal metastasis. The most common site to which cancer metastasize to long bones is the proximal femur, especially to the intertrochanteric region and femoral neck, contributing to increasing incidence of impending and pathologic fractures of this site.(8) Recent advances in cancer treatment increased the longevity of patients, with subsequent increase in morbidity of metastatic disease and increased number of patients living longer with this condition . To date, long femoral stem is most frequently used in cases of pathological and impending proximal femoral fractures. Its use is believed to add more stability and prophylactically protect the entire femur from newly developed distal lesions. However, long stems has more operative time, more cardiopulmonary complications and are more technically demanding compared to standard femoral stems arthroplasty.(5) Recent retrospective study by Xing et al reported comparable outcomes between standard, medium and long stems and concluded that the routine use of long stems is unjustified.Another recent report by Joel et al investigated the use of long femoral stem in 22 limbs, they reported no hardware failure with no cases of intraoperative cardiopulmonary complications, however they recommended larger comparative trials with rigorous methods to investigate the functional outcomes and complications of long femoral stems in proximal femoral metastatic lesions. In face of the potential advantages in this patient population, the goal of this study is to investigate the use of standard length femoral stems and its results compared to long femoral stems in proximal femoral metastasis .