Perfection of contemporary hip joint endoprostheses by using a sapphire-sapphire friction pair

Introduction to medical materials and devices

“…The most common effect is infl ammation caused by the adsorption of proteins (if the material is high density polyethylene, commonly used in prostheses, the hydrophobic nature of polyethylene -see Table 1.1 -promotes denaturation of proteins that come into contact with it, transforming them into non-self objects recognized as such by the immune system, which then works to eliminate them). One promising approach to minimizing wear is the introduction of ultra-hard materials such as monocrystalline sapphire (Mamalis et al ., 2006(Mamalis et al ., , 2007. Sapphire-sapphire contacts have low coeffi cients of friction and the great hardness of the material means that it can be machined into very precise and stable shapes, which in itself minimizes wear.…”

Advanced Manufacturing under Impact / Shock Loading: Principles and Industrial Sustainable Applications

“…(ii) Sapphire head / sapphire cup / titanium stem hip-joint endoprostheses, produced by ultraprecision manufacturing, constitute an important biomechanics sustainable application in biomedical orthopedics and are associated with the active safety for the passengers protection during crash, see Fig. 6(ii) [6].…”

New alternate bearing surfaces in total hip arthroplasty: A review of the current literature

“…In a small study, 5 patients received THAs that contained sapphire femoral heads and had good results at 1-and 5-year follow-up. 20,21 Further clinical testing is needed in order to validate the widespread use of this bearing surface.…”