Study: 2 percent of Americans have new hips, knees

Source: AP-Excite

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE

It's not just grandma with a new hip and your uncle with a new knee. More than 2 of every 100 Americans now have an artificial joint, doctors are reporting.

Among those over 50, it's even more common: Five percent have replaced a knee and more than 2 percent, a hip.

"They are remarkable numbers," said Dr. Daniel J. Berry, chairman of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic. Roughly 7 million people in the United States are living with a total hip or knee replacement.

He led the first major study to estimate how prevalent these procedures have become, using federal databases on surgeries and life expectancy trends. Results were reported Tuesday at an American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons conference in New Orleans.

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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140311/DACF9R302.html

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In this Wednesday, March 5, 2014 photo, Dr. Joshua Jacobs, orthopedics surgery chief at Rush University Medical Center and president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in Chicago, holds a model of a cementless hip replacement. About two of every 100 Americans now has an artificial joint, doctors are reporting. That's 2.5 million with a new hip and 4.7 million with a new knee, according to the first major study to look at how common these operations have become. Results were reported Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at an American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons conference in New Orleans. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)