Direct Anterior vs. Anterolateral Approach for Hip Arthroplasty After Femoral Neck Fracture in the Senior Population

Displaced femoral neck fractures are one group of hip fracture patients that are commonly treated with cemented hemiarthroplasty (HA) or total hip arthroplasty (THA). In the elective hip arthroplasty population, the direct anterior approach (DAA) has shown to be effective in helping patients to quickly obtain high postoperative function. This approach has also been shown to be effective in arthroplasty for displaced femoral neck fractures in a few studies. However, the only studies that directly compare two approaches for hip arthroplasty for femoral neck fractures utilize the anterolateral approach (ALA) versus posterior approach (PA) or DAA versus PA. No studies of which we are aware directly compare the DAA to the ALA. The DAA and ALA are the two most popular approaches for bipolar hemiarthroplasty at our institution, so we are setting out to determine the differences between them.