Recovery room radiographs after total hip arthroplasty: tradition vs utility?

Routine inpatient radiographs after total hip arthroplasty can be taken in the recovery room immediately after surgery or in the radiology suite later in the hospital stay. In a review of 632 consecutive recovery room series, we found that 17% of series were inadequate to detect technical issues. We identified technical issues on 12 series (1.9%) and technical issues that impacted inpatient management on 2 series (0.3%). One of these 2 was a dislocation that was detected clinically before imaging. The other was a medial penetration of an acetabular screw that probably did not require the immediate revision that it received. Findings suggest that the single routine inpatient series should be taken in the radiology suite, rather than in the recovery room.