Metal-on-metal articulation in total hip arthroplasty

PE wear is a major cause of failure in Total Hip Arthroplasty. Thus, alternative bearings have been studied and developed, other than metal-PE. Metal-on-metal shows a superior wear performance compared to both metal-PE (Volumetric wear/year identical with 63 times less) and ceramic-PE (Volumetric wear/year identical with 20 times less). A series of studies, moreover, showed that metal-on-metal wear particles determine cellular toxicity at a concentration 100,000 times higher than the one measured in patients with a metal-on-metal articulation. No definitive clinical results are available yet, but early results are very encouraging.