|About this Abstract
||Materials Science & Technology 2011
||Next Generation Biomaterials
||Third Body Challenges in Total Hip Arthroplasty
||Nishant Tikekar, Anneliese Heiner, Matt Beal, Thomas Brown, John Lannutti
|On-Site Speaker (Planned)
Combined micro-, meso-, and macroscopic wear descriptions are important in establishing the connections between localized wear events and dislocation, osteolysis, ‘pseudotumor’ formation and other diseases associated with total hip replacements (THRs). A registry of such damage on retrieved Co-Cr femoral heads is being compiled to provide an objective basis for clinically representative damage regimens and ranges of severity. We have utilized both optical profilometry and three-dimensional laser micrometry to identify and examine specific wear areas and generalized wear patterns from explanted THRs. At ~1 nm of resolution, profilometry enables high-resolution appreciation of the nature of wear – beyond that available from simple roughness parameters – while also having the ability to ‘stitch’ together areas to produce a uniquely multiscalar, quantitative description of wear features. The data thus gathered can eventually be combined to form a model predicting the nature and rate of wear depending on biomechanical conditions.