King Juan Carlos of Spain underwent a hip replacement surgery on his left hip on Friday this week. Prior to that, the king had two surgeries on the other hip, since he had problems with it after he had fallen badly during hunting expedition of African elephants. The 90-minutes operation successfully replaced king's hip, as per the reports.

The king suffered from arthritis, which raised the need for surgery, a statement from the palace said. The need was revealed last week in Cadiz at a Spain-Latin summit held there. He delayed the operation then in order to attend the summit.

"The operation was carried out under general anesthetic and was completely satisfactory", said King's spokesman. Though the operation is successful, the doctors are advising the Spanish ruler to stay under observation as of now and it has not yet been decided about when to discharge Carlos from the hospital.

The 74-year-old ruler had his sixth operation in the two years. He underwent surgery on his right hip on April 14 after he fell during hunting in Botswana, in which an artificial joint was inserted. In the accident, his hip bone got fractured in three places. The joint got dislocated again after some time and he got operated once again within the same month.