Since
the number of elderly population and the demand
for independent lifestyle tend to increase, the
group of patients that face problem with hip that
require hip replacement also increases resulting
in the need to develop more effective method and
equipment for surgery, especially, the equipment
must last longer.
Currently, there are 2 main equipment
used in hip replacement surgery; Acetabular Cup
and femoral, which are used for movement. There
are different advantages and disadvantages for
using cement and not using cement for adhesive.
Generally, plastic is used but the inner Acetabular
Cup, which is the part that attaches to the metal,
would be made of special type of plastic that is
more endurance but the problem with deterioration
still persists.
Numerous materials have been developed
to be more endurance. One of the techniques is
using all metals for the inner Acetabular Cup or
what is called Metal on metal THR, which is using
the polished inner Acetabular Cup as the actual
joint surface. Actually, this has been done for
quite sometime, but there had been some technical
problems; therefore, it has not been widely used.
However, the technique has been improved resulting
in the replacement lasting up to 30 years.
The
advantage is the reduction of the friction between
the Acetabular Cup and femoral resulting in longer
usage. The disadvantage is such technique can only
be done on some cases due to the different properties
of the bone in different people. Another disadvantage
is the metal ion may enter the blood stream; however,
there has not been any report to confirm such suspicion.
The most important disadvantage is the cost for
such replacement being quite high. |
