Looking For The Vanishing Bone: The Medical Mystery That Plagued Hip Replacements

More than 370,000 Americans have hip replacement surgery, which can be a life-changing cure for crippling and painful arthritis, each year. But in the 1970s, a medical complication arose that threatened the future of the procedure.

Dr. Bill Harris, who was the chief of joint replacement surgery at Mass General Hospital in Boston for 30 years, tried to find out what was going wrong. He's 90 now, and author of a new book called "Vanishing Bone."

WBUR's Carey Goldberg (@commonhealth) shares Harris' story of medical detective work.