Single-mobility trapeziometacarpal prostheses for osteoarthritis have been widely used in recent decades and have a satisfactory short- to medium-term survival rate. However, the long-term is rarely reported. The aim of this study was to report the long-term survival rate of single-mobility trapeziometacarpal prostheses.

A retrospective single-centre study was conducted at a specialized hand department in France. Between 1989 and 2001, all consecutive patients who underwent primary trapeziometacarpal arthroplasty and had a minimum 5 years of follow-up or underwent the revision of the prosthesis before 5 years of follow-up were included. The Arpe prosthesis (Zimmer Biomet, Valence, France) was used in all cases. Two physicians who were not involved in the original surgery or postoperative care contacted all patients who still had a prosthesis to administer a questionnaire that was designed to assess the history of the trapeziometacarpal prosthesis. The survival of the prosthesis was assessed, using the Kaplan-Meier method.

A total of 42 consecutive trapeziometacarpal prostheses (35 patients) were identified. One prosthesis was excluded due to a follow-up less than 5 years. There were 30 women and four men. The median age at surgery was 55 years (interquartile range [IQR] 52–63) and median age at last follow-up was 72 years (IQR 65–78). The median follow-up time was 19 years (IQR 10–25), ranging from 5 to 31 years (excluding prostheses revised within the first five years). The survival rate of the prosthesis was 83% (95% CI, 67 to 91) at 5 years, 72% (95% CI, 55 to 83) at 10 years, 65% (95% CI, 47 to 78) at 15 years, 54% (95% CI, 36 to 69) at 20 years, and 50% (95% CI, 32 to 66) at 25 and 30 years. At the last follow-up, 17 revision operations had been done, with no failures. Nine patients (12 prostheses) died before a potential revision surgery, at a median time of 19 years (IQR 6–24) after the original surgery.

The results of the present study showed an initial decline of the survival rate during the first 5 years (17%), followed by a linear decrease of approximatively 10% every 5 years until 20 years of follow-up. The high rate of revision surgery in the first 5 years could represent a “critical period” in the prosthesis survival.

According to the results of this study, the long-term survival rate of a single-mobility trapeziometacarpal prosthesis is satisfactory.