Crosslinking technique prolongs PE implant life

摘要

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) have come up with a new method of stabilizing orthopedic-grade UHMWPE (ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene) that promises to eliminate the need for costly and painful secondary joint replacement. UHMWPE has long been the preferred material for lining the contact surfaces of orthopedic implants such as hip and knee joints. The stabilization method developed at Massachusetts General, and recently licensed to two leading orthopedic device manufacturers (Sulzer Orthopedics Ltd, Baar Switzerland, and Zimmer Inc, Warsaw, Indiana), consists of crosslinking the PE chains by bombarding extruded rods or compression molded disks of UHMWPE with highly energetic electron beams. The preforms used to make its experimental hip-joint liners have been fabricated by Poly-Hi Solidur, Fort Wayne, Indiana, using a grade of UHMWPE resin (Hostalen GUR 1050) supplied by Ticona GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany.