Anterior Hip Foundation (2026)

26/06/2026

Hip replacement has been performed for more than 70 years. So why don't we actually know how it's done around the world?

Approach. Fixation. Bearing surfaces. Positioning. Pre-op and post-op pathways. Practice varies wildly between countries, institutions, and individual surgeons - and in much of the world, registry data is incomplete, inconsistent, or missing entirely.

In this episode of the AHF Podcast, indefatigable host Joseph Schwab sits down with Irrum Afzal (Imperial College London) to talk about the Global Arthroplasty Practice Survey (GAPS) and the effort, with Professor Richard Field and an international group of surgeons, to map how hip replacement is really being performed worldwide.

Not how we assume it's done. Not how one registry captures it. How surgeons actually practice.

Some of what comes up:
→ Why anterior approach adoption runs ~1% in the UK but ~56% in the US -and what else might vary that we've never measured.
→ How "garbage in, garbage out" quietly undermines the registries we cite every day.
→ What a truly global picture of practice could change for patients.

As Irrum puts it: data is power, but only if the data is good.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation. https://youtu.be/SabDhSUlPnE

And if you perform hip replacements, take the survey - it's under 10 minutes and open to surgeons at every stage. https://tinyurl.com/GAPSHIPS

22/06/2026

"Cement kills." "Cement saves lives."
One stage. Two surgeons. Zero interest in agreeing.

At AHF 2026, Dr. Charles Lawrie and Dr. Michael Blankstein went head-to-head on a question every hip surgeon has an opinion on: cemented security, or collared triple-tapered supremacy?

What followed captured exactly what makes this meeting different — sharp surgical opinions, real-world experience, serious evidence, and just enough chaos to keep the room leaning forward.

This wasn't a polite panel where everyone nods along.

It was two surgeons challenging each other on how they actually operate, what they trust in the OR, and what they believe is safest for the patient. Cementless simplicity vs. cemented predictability. Registry data vs. personal experience. And more than a few well-placed jabs.

You get the idea.

This is the first debate in our AHF 2026 video series, and it's the perfect introduction to the event: practical, passionate, evidence-driven, and very much alive.

Missed it? This is your chance to catch up.
�Were you there? Consider this your reminder that AHF is not your average orthopedic meeting.

Watch the full debate on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeJxW0pwrx8 and tell us: who made the most compelling argument?

06/06/2026

Congratulations to Orthopedic Driven Imaging - AHF 2026 SharkTank winners. They came. They pitched. And they made waves in Nashville.

Scott Banks and J Dean Cole impressed both the Sharks and the audience with a pitch that had real teeth: FDA-approved C-arm hardware/software already used in more than 100 direct anterior THA cases, with a roadmap that moves from better intraoperative imaging to AI-enabled measurements, surgical guidance, free-hand CT, 3D anatomy, joint kinematics, and ultimately a 4D ecosystem for digital-twin-based planning.

In other words: not just another shiny idea swimming around the tank.

ODI is already helping surgeons characterize, treat, and assess patients more effectively, and what they showed at AHF 2026 felt like the low-hanging fruit of a much bigger orchard.

Thank you to every innovator who stepped into the tank this year, and congratulations again to ODI for taking the bait, facing the sharks, and coming out on top.

The water in Nashville was definitely not calm.

Award presented by AHF President Charles Lawrie and SharkTank moderator Stefan Kreuzer, MD.

04/06/2026

AHF 2026 is officially underway!

We kicked things off today with the Fellows & Residents Program supported by Zimmer Biomet, and what a start it's been. Our first lab welcomed 32 Fellows and Residents, and the energy in the room was something special - these are people who are hungry to learn, and they showed up ready.

A huge thank you to our incredible faculty who brought their expertise, passion, and generosity to the lab today:

Nicholas H Mast | Christopher Jimenez, MD | Joseph Varcadipane, MD | Mark Wu | W. Cody Grammer | Brad Walz, MD | James Baker | Louis Okafor

Watching this group soak up every moment alongside such a dedicated faculty is exactly why we do this work.

We also want to recognize the people and partners who make this possible -thank you to Axis Research & Technologies for another flawlessly organized lab, to Zimmer Biomet for your continued commitment to training and education in this field, and to Mizuho OSI and Medtronic for your support in the lab today. It truly takes a village.

And we're not done yet - two more labs to go today. Let's keep the momentum going! 💪

03/06/2026

Don't blame the table.

Don't assume you need a specialty table to do anterior hips.

Don't keep pulling harder when the femur won't come up.

Don't let your assistant become your exposure strategy.

Don't fracture a trochanter trying to force a femur that needs another release.

And whatever you do, don't lose your feel for the hip.

H. John Cooper, MD has performed anterior hips on a standard OR table for 14 years. No traction table. No assistant controlling the leg. No special tricks. Just a deep understanding of anatomy, precise releases, and knowing exactly how much force is too much.

One of his best lines:

"If I'm pulling too hard, I know I need another release."

That's the theme throughout. The answer isn't usually more force. It's better exposure.

This AHF 2025 presentation is a reminder that great surgery isn't about the equipment. It's about understanding what the equipment is trying to accomplish. The table matters less than the surgeon standing beside it.

For more pearls like these, join us in Nashville this week, June 5–6 for AHF 2026.

Watch the full presentation on YouTube https://youtu.be/6TZCaXxyba8

02/06/2026

A quick moment to recognize the man who has given so much to this community.

Dr. Alexander Sah - AHF Board member and Director of the AHF 2026 Traveling Fellowship - has been featured twice in Becker's Healthcare this month. Named one of five leaders in outpatient joint replacement surgery nationwide, and the subject of a dedicated feature asking why orthopedic surgeons are flying in from around the world just to watch his OR operate.

The answer, if you've spent any time at his practice in Fremont, CA or at Washington Outpatient Surgery Center, LLC, is not complicated.

It is the system.

Not just the surgery itself, but the entire experience around it, redesigned from the ground up around precision, efficiency, and repeatability. Robotic platforms chosen for how they fit an ASC, not a hospital. AI evaluating anatomy in real time. Patient tracking from pre-op through recovery. A team that doesn't just support the surgeon - it makes the whole thing work.

As Dr. Sah puts it: 'Everything is built around efficiency, reliability and reproducibility, with technologies that reach their peak potential in the ASC setting.

This is precisely why surgeons come to AHF events. Not just to hear about what's possible - but to get close to the people actually pushing the boundaries. Through our annual meeting, our faculty, and programs like the Traveling Fellowship, AHF exists to connect the wider orthopedic community with practitioners operating at the absolute cutting edge.

The 2026 Traveling Fellows experienced this firsthand at Fremont on day one. But it's a philosophy that runs through everything we do.

Congratulations, Alex. The recognition is thoroughly deserved.

To read the articles:
https://www.beckersspine.com/orthopedic/why-orthopedic-surgeons-are-flying-across-the-world-to-watch-this-california-asc-operate/

https://www.beckersasc.com/orthopedics-tjr/5-orthopedic-surgeons-leading-outpatient-joint-replacement-programs/

01/06/2026

The AHF 2026 Traveling Fellowship is in its final stretch.

Eight fellows. Two tracks. And after nearly two weeks on the road, they're about to hit their last two stops before converging on Nashville for AHF 2026.

So what have they taken from the ORs, the labs, the late nights, and the travel so far? Ask them, and the answer is honest:

It's not one earth-shattering moment. It's a collection of moments.

Tips and tricks on intraoperative table management. Retractor placement. Team-based care that actually flows. Exposure techniques that unlock situations you've been quietly wrestling with.

DePuy Synthes hosted a lab where Dr. Joel Matta demonstrated extensile approaches to the acetabulum and femur. Time with Dr. Anay Patel on femoral nail removal combined with THA. The kind of case most surgeons dread — and now they've seen it broken down.

And the technology. Seeing it deployed in a real OR, not a vendor booth at a tradeshow, changes something. It moves from concept to tool. From interesting to useful.

But it hasn't all been ORs and THAs. There's been downtime too. Dinners. Conversations that spill past the cases and into careers, challenges, and ambitions. Eight early-career surgeons, from different backgrounds, different practices, different parts of the country, building the kind of relationships that don't happen at a conference exhibit hall. The network they're forming here will outlast the fellowship by decades.

That's the shift this fellowship creates. Not revelation. Accumulation. Confidence built case by case, question by question, surgeon by surgeon — and a community built in the hours in between.

Two stops to go. Then Nashville.

Watch this space.

31/05/2026

Torus Biomedical is taking the plunge.

The pitch: make standard fluoroscopy smarter for hip replacement surgery.

Fluoro is already in the OR. The challenge is that 2D images can be affected by projection, parallax, distortion, and patient pose.

Enter ConfirMap, an AI-enabled intraoperative imaging platform designed to turn standard fluoroscopic images into calibrated, pose-aware surgical intelligence for more reliable intraoperative assessment. That means better information from the tools surgeons already use.

And Shahram Amiri brings more than a pitch. He brings a track record.

The Torus Biomedical Solutions Inc. founder and CEO previously developed the ConfirMap technology for spine intraoperative imaging, which was acquired by ATEC Spine in 2022 and is now part of the EOS Insight ecosystem.

Now, Torus is bringing that experience to hip replacement.

Shahram Amiri makes his case to the AHF sharks at Consensus & Controversy in Nashville next week.

Will smart fluoro make waves? Come find out.

$Most surgeons are comfortable with the anterior approach...until the case stops being straightforward.Long spiral fractu...$

27/05/2026

Most surgeons are comfortable with the anterior approach...until the case stops being straightforward.

Long spiral fracture intraoperatively. Loose cemented revision stem. Diaphyseal access through a wound designed for something simpler. That's where confidence disappears.

And that's exactly what Dr. Yale Fillingham addresses in this AHF 2025 Fundamentals session on extensile exposure through the anterior approach.

His core message is worth sitting with: there's no need to fear anterior femoral revisions. You're not doing a different operation. You're connecting the dots.

The capsulectomy you already do becomes a 360-degree release. The standard incision extends distally into a subvastus approach you've done before on lateral femur plating. The TFL release, when you need it, is less like a formal takedown and more like a quad snip in the knee. The repair isn't the point. The exposure is.

The technical details matter too. That flexible reamer sleeve sitting unused in your revision tray? It's your best friend for protecting the proximal wound corner when you're bringing long instruments in from the front. Worth knowing before you need it.

Complex anterior surgery becomes less intimidating when you stop treating it as a crisis and start treating it as a sequence.

Do the releases. Connect the anatomy. The femur will come.

For this kind of teaching, and the chance to practice it hands-on, it's not too late to join us in Nashville.

Watch the full session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqaIM8nyrtM

AHF 2026 Nashville | June 5–6

23/05/2026

A product can work beautifully in 20 sites, then start breaking at 200.

Not because the product suddenly failed, but because scale changes the test.

There’s a concept in materials engineering called fatigue failure: a structure performs perfectly under normal load, until repeated stress exposes weaknesses that no single event could have revealed. That’s the tension at the center of Episode 10 of AHF Podcast's "From Idea to Market: What Breaks at Scale."

By this point, the product has survived the early gauntlet. It has earned credibility, cleared major hurdles. It has found real users and demand is building. And then the pressure keeps coming, because in MedTech, launch is not the end of product development. It is the beginning of the most information-rich phase of it.

This episode asks three questions every founder, investor, surgeon, and commercial leader should care about:

→ What does real-world use reveal that development programs cannot?

→ Which structural and commercial weaknesses only surface at scale?

→ How do teams build the discipline to act on what the market tells them?

The answers are uncomfortable.

Clinical trials don’t capture every patient, every surgeon, every institution, or every workflow. Regulatory clearance doesn’t create demand. Clinical value doesn’t advertise itself. Reimbursement can become the “second valley of death.” And the feedback that matters most is often trapped far from the people who can act on it.

Host Joseph Schwab speaks with guests Jared Foran, MD, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie DeCook, and Robert Cohen about what success actually costs once the market starts applying pressure.

Because scale doesn’t just prove whether the product works. It proves whether the company can keep learning fast enough to survive what the real world reveals.

🎧 Watch or listen to Episode 10 of the AHF Podcast’s From Idea to Market series. Link in comments.

Anterior Hip Foundation

26/06/2026

22/06/2026

06/06/2026

04/06/2026

03/06/2026

02/06/2026

01/06/2026

31/05/2026

27/05/2026

23/05/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share