A722. EFFECT OF LOADING AND SERUM PROTEINS ON THE FRICTIONAL PROPERTY OF VITAMIN E-CONTAINING ULTRAHIGH MOLECULAR WEIGHT POLYETHYLENE

Abstract

It have been reported that the wear volume of vitamin E-containing UHMWPE tested with a knee joint simulator was approximately 30% lower than that of virgin UHMWPE at 5 million cycles. However, the wear resistance mechanism of vitamin E-containing UHMWPE has not yet been clarified. The present study examines the effects of the addition of vitamin E on the frictional properties of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) under several different load and serum conditions.

Friction tests were carried out using a computer-controlled pin-on-disk friction test apparatus. The UHMWPE pin was mounted vertically at the tip of the leaf spring and linear reciprocating sliding motion for 2,000 cycles with an amplitude of 1 mm and a frequency of 1 Hz, was applied under 3 MPa or 30 MPa loading against Co-28Cr-6Mo alloy disk. The lubricant bath was filled with 5 ml of ultrapure water, fresh serum, post-friction (PF) serum or diluted-PF (DPF) which were kept at a temperature of 37°C. The friction force between the UHMWPE pin and the Co-28Cr-6Mo alloy disk was calculated from the displacement of the leaf spring during the sliding motion.

Vitamin E-containing UHMWPE showed a significantly higher friction force than that of virgin UHMWPE in fresh serum lubricant at 30 MPa loading, while there were little differences in either ultrapure water or PF serum or DPF serum. And vitamin E-containing UHMWPE tends to exhibit a lower dynamic friction force within the first few hundred cycles in the case of all serum lubricants at 30 MPa loading. These results suggest that some interaction between the UHMWPE surface and the native conformation proteins was specifically affected by the addition of vitamin E and that some weeping of vitamin E might occur at early stage of sliding. Our results also suggest the importance of the conformational changes of serum proteins for the wear testing.