Hundreds of thousands of patients have been fitted with metal-on-metal hip joints
An investigation into why metal-on-metal hip joints fail long before other types of joints, such as metal-on-polyethylene and ceramic-on-ceramic, has revealed how the metal particles shed by the joints grinding against each other damage surrounding cells. The work, carried out by scientists in the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and the US, could lead to ways to predict which patients will have problems with these joints.
One theory why metal-on-metal hip implants fail points to the debris that is generated as the joints wear. It is thought that the debris is not compatible with human tissue, which causes the metal hip joints to fail, but it’s not known why.
Read the full article in Chemistry World
Link to journal article
Chemical Speciation of Nanoparticles Surrounding Metal-on-Metal Hips
A E Goode et al
Chem. Commun., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2cc33016d
