title: Wear of the polyethylene acetabular cup. The effect of head material, head diameter, and cup thickness studied with a hip simulator.
abstract: Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene acetabular cups backed by Ti-6Al-4V acetabular shells were articulated against Co-Cr-Mo alloy, ion-implanted Co-Cr-Mo alloy, and zirconia ceramic femoral heads in a hip joint simulator. Three tests of three million walking cycles each were run with five different head-cup combinations. The wear of the cups was measured gravimetrically at half a million cycle intervals. When the thickness of the cup was 10.9 mm, the mean wear rate was 0.14 mm/year against 28 mm dia. Co-Cr-Mo heads and 0.09 mm/year against ion-implanted 28 mm Co-Cr-Mo heads. When the thickness of the cup was 7.0 mm, the mean wear rate was 0.04 mm/year against 28 mm zirconia heads, but when the thickness was 10.9 mm, no wear occurred against 28 and 32 mm zirconia heads. The results indicate that a significant reduction in the wear of the polyethylene cup can be expected if zirconia is used as the head material, instead of Co-Cr-Mo alloy or ion-implanted Co-Cr-Mo alloy. The diameter of the zirconia head, 28 vs. 32 mm, seems unimportant, but a cup thickness much below 10 mm may be disadvantageous.
authors.affiliation: Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Machine Design, Espoo, Finland.
authors.forename: V O
authors.initials: VO
authors.lastname: Saikko
mesh_terms: D000077:Acetabulum; D006622:Hip Prosthesis; D006801:Humans; D011095:Polyethylenes; D011474:Prosthesis Design
chemical_list: D011095:Polyethylenes