If a surgeon performs 200 procedures per year, he/she will have to see 800 patients for follow-up by year 5 and 1300 patients per year by year 10. Normal time constraints make this implausible. When do total hip arthroplasty (THA) patients have the greatest need for follow-up? We reviewed 8331 primary THAs to determine the greatest risk of failure across time. Patients failed with the greatest ratio at 1 year or earlier, followed by 10 and 12 years postoperatively. The median time to failure

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... all hips was 8.8 years, the average time to failure was 9.2 years, and 75% of failures occurred by 13.0 years. The most common failure mechanisms were due to the cup (5.0%), dislocation (3.2%), cup and stem (1.7%), infection (0.4%), and the stem (0.4%). Based on the most common failure mechanisms, it is recommended to evaluate patients at the 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 7 years, 10 years, 12 years, 18 years, and 25 years postoperatively.