Abstract The medical profession has a need for improved orthopaedic devices and biomaterials. The replacement of knee and hip joints with metallic prosthetic devices has provided mobility to many elderly patients suffering from bone diseases. Unfortunately, metal prostheses, anchored with methyl methacrylate cement, have a useful life of 7 to 10 years. Bond failure necessitates an entire replacement of the prosthesis. Osteoporosis, or bone resorption, due to the presence of the implant limits the number of implant operations to two per patient. As a consequence, joint replacements are typically restricted to patients over the age of 55. A definite need exists for a new material system for extending the expected life of these prosthetic devices in younger patients. If the prosthetic device could be designed to outlive the patient, young adult patients could receive a device without the need for a second replacement operation or fear of being crippled in their later years of life. The long term objective of this research is to greatly extend the service life of prosthetic devices, specifically artificial joints. A materials systems approach is being employed to accomplish this objective. The two specific materials technologies being integrated in this proposed study are carbon/carbon composites and diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings.
Devlin et al. (Sun,) studied this question.
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