A new short uncemented, proximally fixed anatomic femoral implant with a prominent lateral flare: design rationals and study design of an international clinical trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Anatomic short femoral prostheses with a prominent lateral flare have the potential to reduce stress-shielding in the femur through a more physiological stress distribution to the proximal femur. We present the design rationale of a new short uncemented, proximally fixed anatomic femoral implant and the study design of a prospective multi-centre trial to collect long-term patient outcome and radiographic follow up data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A prospective surveillance study (trial registry NCT00208555) in four European centres (UK, Italy, Spain and Germany) with a follow up period of 15 years will be executed. The recruitment target is 200 subjects, patients between the ages of 18 and 70 admitted for primary cementless unilateral THA will be included. The primary objective is to evaluate the five-year survivorship of the new cementless short stem. The secondary objectives of this investigation are to evaluate the long term survivorship and the clinical performance of the implant, the impact on the subjects health related Quality of Life and the affect of the prosthesis on bone mineral density. Peri- and postoperative complications will be registered. Clinical and radiographic evaluation of prosthesis positioning will be done post-operatively and at 3, 6, 12, 24, 60, 120 and 180 months follow up.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Shortening of the distal stem can maximise bone and soft tissue conservation. New stem types have been designed to improve the limitations of traditional implants in primary THA. A new, uncemented femoral short stem is introduced in this paper. A long-term follow up study has been designed to verify stable fixation and to research into the clinical outcome. The results of this trial will be presented as soon as they become available.</p

Role of biomechanics in the understanding of normal, injured, and healing ligaments and tendons

Ligaments and tendons are soft connective tissues which serve essential roles for biomechanical function of the musculoskeletal system by stabilizing and guiding the motion of diarthrodial joints. Nevertheless, these tissues are frequently injured due to repetition and overuse as well as quick cutting motions that involve acceleration and deceleration. These injuries often upset this balance between mobility and stability of the joint which causes damage to other soft tissues manifested as pain and other morbidity, such as osteoarthritis

Regional Variations of Bone Quantity and Quality Impact Femoral Head Collapse

Osteonecrosis (ON) of the femoral head causes the bone to deteriorate, buckle, and collapse. As the vasculature is reportedly uniform in the femoral head, one would expect uniform susceptibility to ON; however, collapse typically occurs in the anterior region. We asked whether regional variations in bone quantity and/or quality could explain the bone’s anterior susceptibility despite uniform vascularity. We examined seven femoral heads resected for primary osteoarthritis and three removed after femoral neck fracture. Each was cut into 4-mm-thick, 1.5 cm × 1.5-cm bone squares, processed for light microscopy, and sectioned twice. One section was stained with Gomori’s trichrome and assessed by a computer-assisted microscope, which calculated trabecular area, a measure of bone quantity. The other was stained with hematoxylin and eosin and assessed by light microscopy to identify trabecular microfractures, a measure of bone quality. Bone quantity and quality were reduced in the fracture group as a whole; bone quantity was uniform in each femoral head, but the quality was reduced in the anterior portion. The quality was further reduced in the superior region of arthritic bone and in the lateral-inferior regions of the fractured bones. Our findings suggest the anterior susceptibility is the result of bone loading and, as such, reinforcement of the femoral head in ON should focus on the anterior hemisphere

Three-dimensional orthotropic viscoelastic finite element model of a human ligament

Ligaments undergo finite strain displaying hyperelastic behaviour as the initially tangled fibrils present straighten out, combined with viscoelastic behaviour (strain rate sensitivity). In the present study the anterior cruciate ligament of the human knee joint is modelled in three dimensions to gain an understanding of the stress distribution over the ligament due to motion imposed on the ends, determined from experimental studies. A three dimensional, finite strain material model of ligaments has recently been proposed by Pioletti in Ref. [2]. It is attractive as it separates out elastic stress from that due to the present strain rate and that due to the past history of deformation. However, it treats the ligament as isotropic and incompressible. While the second assumption is reasonable, the first is clearly untrue. In the present study an alternative model of the elastic behaviour due to Bonet and Burton (Ref. [4]) is generalized. Bonet and Burton consider finite strain with constant modulii for the fibres and for the matrix of a transversely isotropic composite. In the present work, the fibre modulus is first made to increase exponentially from zero with an invariant that provides a measure of the stretch in the fibre direction. At 12% strain in the fibre direction, a new reference state is then adopted, after which the material modulus is made constant, as in Bonet and Burton's model. The strain rate dependence can be added, either using Pioletti's isotropic approximation, or by making the effect depend on the strain rate in the fibre direction only. A solid model of a ligament is constructed, based on experimentally measured sections, and the deformation predicted using explicit integration in time. This approach simplifies the coding of the material model, but has a limitation due to the detrimental effect on stability of integration of the substantial damping implied by the nonlinear dependence of stress on strain rate. At present, an artificially high density is being used to provide stability, while the dynamics are being removed from the solution using artificial viscosity. The result is a quasi-static solution incorporating the effect of strain rate. Alternate approaches to material modelling and integration are discussed, that may result in a better model

The influence of femoral head shift on hip biomechanics: additional parameters accounted

Pauwels’ method of hip biomechanics can explain a negative influence of the lateral shift of the femoral head on the load of dislocated hip joint, but, the influence of the cranial shift of femoral head can not be explained. A calculation of hip balance which takes into consideration both lateral and cranial shifts of the femoral head is presented. Two pelvic radiographs were used; of an adult person and of a two year old child. One hip was normal, and other was dislocated. Force R was established using horizontal lever k1, and a new vertical lever k2. Graphically and mathematically the results show that the force R is always greater in the dislocated hip. Both lateral and cranial shifts contribute to this. The modification of Pauwels method described clearly demonstrates that not only lateral but also cranial shift of the femoral head in dislocated hip should be taken into consideration

Promising mid-term results of total hip arthroplasties using an uncemented lateral-flare hip prosthesis: a clinical and radiographic study

The clinical results after total hip replacements using noncemented stems have shown considerable variability over the years; the design and characteristics of the implant seemed to play a role in explaining this fact. The purpose of this paper is to report the clinical, radiographic and densitometry results of total hip arthroplasties using a stem designed for noncemented implantation and to engage and load the femur proximally. Fifty-eight consecutive patients (62 hips) followed for an average of 4.3 years (range 36–70 months) were clinically and radiographically followed up at three weeks, three months, six months, one year, and yearly thereafter. The average pre-operative Harris hip score was 49 increasing to 98 at the latest follow-up. There were no cases of aseptic or septic loosening. The average subsidence at three years was 0.45 mm (SD ± 0.36 mm). Radiographically all hips were classified as stable, and evident changes compatible with new bone apposition were observed in 64% of the cases. The extended proximal geometry of the device seems to favour initial and secondary stability as reflected by the low subsidence values over time. The maintenance of periprosthetic bone stock and the absence of stress shielding can be explained by the predominantly proximal loading pattern of the stem