RESEARCH ARTICLE
Alumina-on-Polyethylene Bearing Surfaces in Total Hip Arthroplasty
Jung Yup Lee, Shin-Yoon Kim*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 56
Last Page: 60
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-4-56
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001004010056
Article History:
Received Date: 1/10/2009Revision Received Date: 17/11/2009
Acceptance Date: 5/1/2010
Electronic publication date: 11/2/2010
Collection year: 2010

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The long-term durability of polyethylene lining total hip arthroplasty (THA) mainly depends on periprosthetic osteolysis due to wear particles, especially in young active patients. In hip simulator study, reports revealed significant wear reduction of the alumina ceramic-on-polyethylene articulation of THA compared with metal-on-polyethylene bearing surfaces. However, medium to long-term clinical studies of THA using the alumina ceramic-on-polyethylene are few and the reported wear rate of this articulation is variable. We reviewed the advantages and disadvantages of ceramicon- polyethylene articulation in THA, hip simulator study and retrieval study for polyethylene wear, in vivo clinical results of THA using alumina ceramic-on-polyethylene bearing surfaces in the literature, and new trial alumina ceramic-onhighly cross linked polyethylene bearing surfaces.