Investigation of the wear properties of ceramic total hip prostheses made of alumina and zirconia combination: a HIP simulator study

摘要

Since late 1980's, zirconia ceramic has been used as the material for femoral heads of total hip prostheses (THP) because of its high fracture toughness and good wear performance such as relatively low generation of wear debris when used with polyethylene acetabular cup. Currently. the use of zirconia femoral head is predominant in Japan for THP applications. However zirconia on zirconia hearing for THP itself is still controvertial in terms of wear performance, and only limited number of attempts in laboratory wear tests for alumina-zirconia bearing have been made. The aim of this study is to investigate the wear properties of zirconia components by hip simulator tests, when used in combination with zirconia and alumina as a counter surface.