Abstract
Wear of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) is a major factor that affects longevity of the total joint replacement. In total hips, cross-linking of polyethylene acetabular cup has been shown highly effective in reducing wear both clinically and experimentally. In TKR, Schmidig 2000 showed 90% reduction of wear rate in 10 Mrad irradiated tibial inserts compared to 3 Mrad irradiated tibial inserts. Thus crosslinking should provide substantial improvement also in the wear resistance of UHMWPE tibial inserts. Our objective was to compare 3 Mrad UHMWPE with 10 Mrad HCLPE in same design but comparing standard kinematics to more severe mal-rotation kinematics. The latter offsets the tibial tray with 15 degrees internal rotation such the central tibial eminencies became involved in the wear process. Our hypothesis was that HCLPE would be more resistant than the standard UHMPE even in the mal-rotation model. The control material was Duracon 3 Mrad UHMWPE. HCLPE was radiation crosslinked to 10 Mrad mater
The abstracts were prepared by Nico Verdonschot. Correspondence should be addressed to him at Orthopaedic Research Laboratory, University Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
