A study has been made of the wear of hip sockets of P.T.F.E. against various sizes of stainless steel femoral head in the course of total prosthetic replacement of the hip in the human subject. The most serious aspect of the failure of P.T.F.E. was the production of a tissue reaction by wear debris. Artificial hip joints using plastic sockets should, therefore, be designed to produce the minimum volume of wear debris over a given period. The smaller the diameter of the metal head the smaller the volume of wear debris, but below a certain optimal size the rate of penetration of the socket by the small head would be too rapid. Conclusions based on the observed behaviour of P.T.F.E. in the human body indicate that for the longest life of a socket the optimum size of femoral head will be half that of the external diameter of the socket. It is considered that these observations can be applied to other plastics more resistant to wearing than P.T.F.E. An unexpected observation from clinical practice was that the wear of a P.T.F.E. socket seemed to be more dependent on the activity of the patient than the weight of the patient.
Copyright remains with the authors and publisher.
A study has been made of the wear of hip sockets of P.T.F.E. against various sizes of stainless steel femoral head in the course of total prosthetic replacement of the hip in the human subject. The most serious aspect of the failure of P.T.F.E. was the production of a tissue reaction by wear debris. Artificial hip joints using plastic sockets should, therefore, be designed to produce the minimum volume of wear debris over a given period. The smaller the diameter of the metal head the smaller the volume of wear debris, but below a certain optimal size the rate of penetration of the socket by the small head would be too rapid. Conclusions based on the observed behaviour of P.T.F.E. in the human body indicate that for the longest life of a socket the optimum size of femoral head will be half that of the external diameter of the socket. It is considered that these observations can be applied to other plastics more resistant to wearing than P.T.F.E. An unexpected observation from clinical practice was that the wear of a P.T.F.E. socket seemed to be more dependent on the activity of the patient than the weight of the patient.
Copyright remains with the authors and publisher.