Alumina hip joints characterized by run-in wear and steady-state wear to 14 million cycles in hip-simulator model

The biphasic wear performance (run-in; steady-state phase) of 28-mm alumina-alumina hip implants was studied by hip simulator methods using bovine serum as the lubricant. The Biolox™ implants were run to 5.7 million cycles and Bioceram™ implants to 14.4 million cycles (Mc). Wear with all-alumina total hip replacements (THR) first showed a high wear rate of the order 1.2 mm3/Mc, lasting approximately 0.17 Mc. Overall to 0.7 Mc, the run-in phase appeared curvilinear but could be described by a linear phase averaging 0.3 mm3/Mc. From 0.7 to 1 Mc duration, the wear trend transitioned into a steady-state phase. Wear rates from 1 to 14 Mc were of the order 0.02 mm3/Mc. Surface contamination from the serum lubricant resulted in cyclic weight fluctuations of the order 0.2 mg. The transition from average run-in to steady-state phase represented a wear reduction of 13-fold. Comparing the steady-state wear value to that in standard 28-mm UHMWPE CUPS approaching 75 mm3/year, there was clearly a three-orders-of- magnitude wear superiority in favor of ceramic cups. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.