Hernigou, Int Orthop 2013 - One Hundred and Fifty Years of History of the Morse Taper: From Stephen a. Morse in 1864 to Complications Related to Modularity in Hip Arthroplasty - Article Summary

One Hundred and Fifty Years of History of the Morse Taper: From Stephen a. Morse in 1864 to Complications Related to Modularity in Hip Arthroplasty

Hernigou, Flouzat Lachaniette, et al.·Int Orthop·2013·90 citations·Review article

Hernigou (2013) is a historical review tracing the Morse taper from its 1864 mechanical origins to its adaptation in hip arthroplasty, explaining the mechanical principles governing taper stability and cataloguing the failure modes — dissociation, fretting corrosion, and ceramic fracture — that emerge when modular taper components are mismatched or improperly assembled.

Key Findings

Stephen A. Morse invented the taper in 1864 with an original angle of 2°50′; orthopaedic tapers use 5–18° — a deliberate departure that trades some stability for surgical flexibility
The taper was first adapted for ceramic hip heads in 1974 (Mittelmeier/Ceramtec), replacing acrylic glue fixation that caused frequent head fractures
Orthopaedic Morse tapers are not standardized across manufacturers — components that appear identical can be dimensionally incompatible, making cross-manufacturer mixing a leading cause of dissociation and ceramic fracture from hoop stress
Modularity-related complications were estimated at 0.1–0.2% incidence, but 20 cases collected over five years by the authors' group suggests significant underreporting
Joining surfaces must be clean and dry at assembly — some taper designs provide almost no interlocking when wet, and interfacial micromotion from tolerance variance drives fretting corrosion

Supplemental

One Hundred and Fifty Years of History of the Morse Taper: From Stephen a. Morse in 1864 to Complications Related to Modularity in Hip Arthroplasty.

Hernigou, Flouzat Lachaniette, et al.Int Orthop201390 citationsReview article