SITES OF KINETICALLY CRITICAL FEMORAL HEAD ROUGHENING FOR THIRD BODY ACCELERATION OF TOTAL HIP IMPLANT WEAR

摘要

Polyethylene debris shed during the use of total hip implants can result in debris-induced aseptic loosening. This aseptic loosening is the leading cause of implant failure. Total hip implant wear is highly variable and can be accelerated by third body ingress and subsequent roughening of the metal femoral head counterface. Up to 40% of clinical wear rate variance may be attributable to third body effects. It is hypothesized that the location of counterface roughening will have dramatic effects on the induced implant wear. Using a previously validated sliding-distance-coupled contact finite element (FE) model of total hip implant wear, we identified regions of the femoral head surface that, when roughened, result in maximal wear. By implication, these are the sites most important to protect from third body access.