Statistics and database. Division for Medical Statistics, Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen . Head of the Division for Medical Statistics, University of Bergen. The initiator of the project. The registration comprises information regarding both primary insertions of prostheses and later revisions, i.e. exchanges or removals of previously inserted prostheses.
Information is provided on a standard form filled in by the orthopaedic surgeons.
Information on around 6,000 hip replacements and 1,800 replacements of other joints are reported to the register every year. It is not compulsory to report joint replacements to the Norwegian Arthroplasty Register. A permission to collect this information is obtained from each patient. In the early 1980's several hip prosthesis brands common in use in Norway, were reported with largely inferior clinical results. Unfortunately, these prostheses were used to a large number of patients both in Norway and in other countries before their inferior results were known.