Orthopaedics in a changing world
Since Alan Apley published the first edition of this book the world has changed considerably and so has the practice of orthopaedic surgery. In 1959, hip replacement was rare and had high failure rates, knee replacement and arthroscopy did not exist and fractures were primarily treated in traction.
The last edition of this book commented on the projected impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The
epidemic has largely been brought under control, with effective treatment resulting in normal life expectancy for sufferers. However, in untreated individuals, the incidence of secondary infection such as tuberculosis is high and the prognosis is still dire. It is interesting and encouraging to note that both the National Joint Registry for England and Wales and the Malawian Joint Registry have shown that hip replacement is an effective treatment for patients who have multimorbidity which includes AIDS with no increased risk of early postoperative mortality compared with patients
who do not have AIDS.
Over the lifetime of this book many treatments have been invented, extensively used, found to be
Ineffective or suboptimal and subsequently have declined dramatically in popularity. Examples of this include arthroscopic debridement for knee osteoarthritis, metal-on-metal hip replacement and excision arthroplasty of the distal ulna. It is important that we continue to challenge the efficacy of existing and novel treatments. In a world of increasing global need orthopaedics has to be proven to be efficacious and cost-effective.
Since 1959, the world’s population has more than doubled to over 7 billion people and has aged considerably. Life expectancy at birth is now 80 years in Europe and 74 years in Asia. There are still marked disparities – for instance Japan has a life expectancy at birth of 83 years compared to 57 years in South Africa – but these differences are narrowing. It is projected that by 2050 4% of the world’s population (but 16% of Japan’s population) will be over 80 years of age. Between 2010 and 2050 the proportion of the population aged over 65 years will double in most countries, and it is predicted to increase from 5% to 11% in South Africa, 5% to 13% in India and 17% to 36% in Spain.
Orthopaedics remains as relevant a specialty as ever, treating a large burden of the world’s morbidity. However, the nature of care has changed, with a much lower burden of chronic musculoskeletal infections today and a steeply rising incidence of joint replacement for primarily degenerative conditions. The World Health Organization estimates that 10% of men and 18% of women aged over 60 years have symptomatic osteoarthritis. Total knee and total hip replacement are now the second and third commonest elective operative procedures performed in developed countries. For example, in England and Wales, which have a combined population of approximately 55 million people, over 170 000 hip and knee replacements are performed annually. The provision of arthroplasty varies greatly, with 226 knee replacements per 100 000 population performed annually in the United States of America compared to only 3 per 100 000 population in neighboring Mexico. Increasingly the outcomes of common procedures, such as arthroplasty and fractured neck of femur fixation, are being monitored by national registries in a wide range of countries and healthcare settings. It is heartening that even low-income countries such as Malawi have established implant registries that are providing clinically important data. As the prevalence
of infectious diseases declines in low-income countries and people live longer, more health resources will be spent on treating long-term conditions of the elderly such as osteoarthritis.
Accidents and emergencies still represent a major healthcare burden. Over 1.25 million people die
worldwide annually as a result of road traffic accidents. The majority of these occur in Asia. Millions
more are seriously injured. Injuries from road traffic accidents are the third largest cause of morbidity among adult males. Orthopaedic care remains of paramount importance for effectively and quickly returning patients as closely as possible to their pre-injury state and thereby allowing them to participate fully in society.
The provision of health care and resources varies considerably between countries: Greece has 6.3 doctors per 1000 population; South Africa has 0.8 and India only 0.7. While the number of doctors practicing in some countries has remained relatively static, in Australia and the United Kingdom there has been an increase of over 50% in the number of registered doctors in the past decade. Part of this is due to migration of doctors, which may exacerbate shortages in low-income countries. More than 40 000 foreign-trained doctors, including an author of this preface, work in
In the United Kingdom, nearly half of them come from India and Pakistan. In Israel, New Zealand, Norway, and Ireland over a third of practicing doctors are foreign-trained. The movement of doctors between countries promotes the spread of ideas and innovation and improves training. However, there is a natural gravitation of expertise towards countries that offer higher remuneration and better working conditions at the expense of low- and middle-income countries. The United States of America spends $8713 per capita on health care, while China spends $649 and India $215. With rapidly increasing per capita GDP in countries such as China and India, the demographics of healthcare will change markedly over the next decade. The relative need to treat infection and injury will hopefully decline, but this will inevitably be coupled with an increase in treatments for longer-term musculoskeletal conditions.
Ashley W. Blom
David Warwick
Michael R. Whitehouse
Bristol and Southampton, 2017
Data are publically available from the OECD at:
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issuesmigration-
health/health-at-a-glance_19991312#