What do they do with their metalwork? What patients do with orthopaedic implants given to them after surgery.

Removal of metalwork is one of the commonest orthopaedic elective procedures with patients often requesting to keep their implants. Five hundred consecutive patients who had removal of their orthopaedic implant between April 1994 and March 2000 were contacted by post. Three hundred and seventy-two responded (response rate 74%). Two hundred and thirty-nine patients (64%) had metalwork extracted from their lower limb, whilst one hundred and thirty-three (36%) had metalwork extracted from their upper limb. Sixty-one patients (17%) had kept their metalwork upon being contacted. Of the sixty-one patients, 10 (16%) had used their implant for functional use, 22 (36%) had stored theirs and 29 (48%) did not know what had happened to theirs.