Trochanteric Slide for Revision Total Hip Arthroplasty: Opening the Barn Door

A trochanteric osteotomy offers extensile exposure of the hip on both the acetabular and femoral sides. The classical trochanteric osteotomy, which is transverse and involved a release of the vastus lateralis muscles, is complicated by a significant incidence of trochanteric nonunion, and more importantly, trochanteric migration. The trochanteric slide was designed to avoid trochanteric migration by keeping the trochanteric fragment in continuity with the abductors and the vastus lateralis. This exposure provides an extensile exposure of the pelvis and femur. If femoral component removal is anticipated to be difficult, then we use exactly the same approach but we extend the trochanteric fragment down as in an extended trochanteric osteotomy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate our clinical and radiographic results of the modified trochanteric slide osteotomy exposure.