Studies of patients having primary THR using highly cross-linked polyethylene show excellent clinical outcomes and very low radiographic wear results at a minimum of 5 years follow-up. Recently, a radiostereometric analysis (RSA) study of a small group of patients reported that after no detectable wear during years 1–5, they found a significant increase in femoral head penetration between 5 and 7 years follow-up. However, this increase in head penetration after 5 years has not been confirmed in a larger patient cohort.

The purpose of this study was to organize a multicenter radiographic study involving leading medical centers in the U.S. having the longest-term follow-up available on this type of highly cross-linked polyethylene in order to determine if the RSA observation can be confirmed in a larger study.

Six academic centers agreed to contribute radiographic data to this study. All patients received primary total hip replacements with Longevity polyethylene liners (Zimmer, Warsaw, IN) coupled with 26, 28, and 32mm cobalt chrome femoral heads. The radiographic inclusion criteria required a minimum of four radiographs per patient: one at 1 year; at least one from 2 to 4.5 years; one 4.5 to 5.5 years; and at least one from 5.5 to 9 years follow-up. The Martell Hip Analysis Suit-eTM software was used for the wear analysis. All wear values were determined by calculating head penetration between the follow-up radiograph and the 1-year radiograph to remove creep, the majority of which has been shown to occur during the first year. Separate linear regressions, representing the wear rates, were computed for the early period from 1 year to 5.5 years and the late period from 5.5 years to 9 years follow-up. The Zar test was used to determine the significance of the difference between these two linear regressions.

We present the completed analysis of 165 hips. When the early and late data points were combined into one data set, the second-order regression indicated an inflection point at 6.3 years with a slightly positive inflection. There were 402 film comparisons in the early time period, and the slope and confidence interval of the regression line was 4.9μm/yr (95% CI of −28μm/yr to 38μm/yr). There were 188 film comparisons in the late period, and slope of the regression line for the late period was 10.8 μm/yr (95% CI of −58μm/yr to 80μm/yr). The Zar test showed no significant difference between the two slopes (Figure 1, p=0.886).

No significant increase in femoral head penetration was found for the late period after 5 years compared to the early period before 5 years follow-up in either analysis. Additionally, no significant late increase in wear was seen within individuals. While we continue to enroll patients, at this time we do not observe the increase in wear seen in the RSA study after 5 years.