Wear Risk Prevention and Reduction in Total Hip Arthroplasty. A Personalized Study Comparing Cement and Cementless Fixation Techniques Employing Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The wear rate on Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) entails a heavy burden for patients. This becomes more relevant with increased wear risk and its consequences such as osteolysis. In addition, osteolysis has been described in cemented and uncemented acetabular implants, and nowadays, controversy remains as to whether or not to cement the acetabular component. A personalized theoretical study was carried out to investigate which parameters have an influence on wear risk and to determine the best fixation method. Liner wear risk was assessed for two different types of fixation (cemented vs uncemented) through Finite Elements Analysis (FEA). The intraoperative variables used to determine the wear risk (cervical-diaphyseal angle, Center of Rotation positioning -COR-, head material, head size, and liner thickness) are vital parameters in surgical planning. Two types of tridimensional liner models of Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethene (UHMWPE) were simulated through finite element analysis (FEA—over 216 cases were the core of this research). A significant relationship was found between the cervical-diaphyseal angle and wear risk (p < 0.0001), especially in valgus morphology. The acetabular fixation technique (p < 0.0001) and liner thickness (p < 0.0001) showed a significant relationship with wear risk. According to our study, using a cemented fixation with a thick liner in the right center of rotation appears to be the proper stratagy for preventing polyethylene liner wear.