A summary of the state-of-the-art on factors decisive for the safety and long-term function of total joint replacements, in papers from the third Biomaterials Symposium, held in 1987 at the U. of Gottingen, Germany. The volume is divided into sections on requirements on implant security; strength of the biomaterials; tribology of various couplings; shape and dimensions; corrosion and degradation; implant anchorage; bone reaction and bioactivity; custom made implants; manufacturing and quality control; instruments and implant retrieval; clinical experiences, carcinogenicity, and other aspects. For clinicians and researchers from many fields interested in joint replacement. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Modern endoprosthetics requires the examination of basic principles such as metallurgy, tribology, gait analysis, model and system development, methods of implant fixation, design, surface problems, material characteristics, stability behaviour, and operating techniques. With a background of more than 30 years of experience, this work presents a summary of these fields, providing the reader with the current state of knowledge. It is dedicated to Dr. med. h.c. Otto Frey-Zünd who, in conjunction with orthopaedic surgeons, scientists and engineers from all over Europe, developed artificial joints for hips, knees, elbows and wrists in over 30 years of pioneering work.

This book is written for the users and designers of joint replacements. In its second extended edition it conveys to the reader the knowledge accumulated by the authors during their forty year effort on the development of replacement devices for the lower limb for the purpose of aiding the reader in their design and evaluation of joint replacement devices. The early chapters describe the engineering, scientific and medical principles needed for replacement joint evaluation. One must understand the nature and performance of the materials involved and their characteristics in vivo, i.e. the response of the body to implant materials. It is also essential to understand the response of the implants to applied loading and motion, particularly in the hostile physiological environment. A chapter describes the design methodology now required for joint replacement in the USA and EU countries. The remaining chapters provide a history of joint replacement, an evaluation of earlier and current devices and sample case histories of some of the authors’ devices. The present second edition includes various additional case reports as well as a new chapter devoted to the shoulder. Drs. Buechel, an orthopaedic surgeon, and Pappas, a professor of Mechanical Engineering, are the designers of several successful joint replacement systems. The most well-known of these is the pioneering LCS knee replacement.

This advanced book of rigid fixation describes the scientific principles and applied techniques primarily for the AO/ASIF hardware system.

Progress in the development of surgical implant materials has been hindered by the lack of basic information on the nature of the tissues, organs and systems being repaired or replaced. Materials' properties of living systems, whose study has been conducted largely under the rubric of tissue mechanics, has tended to be more descriptive than quantitative. In the early days of the modern surgical implant era, this deficiency was not critical. However, as implants continue to improve and both longer service life and higher reliability are sought, the inability to predict the behavior of implanted manufactured materials has revealed the relative lack of knowledge of the materials properties of the supporting or host system, either in health or disease. Such a situation is unacceptable in more conventional engineering practice: the success of new designs for aeronautical and marine applications depends exquisitely upon a detailed, disciplined and quantitative knowledge of service environments, including the properties of materials which will be encountered and interacted with. Thus the knowledge of the myriad physical properties of ocean ice makes possible the design and development of icebreakers without the need for trial and error. In contrast, the development period for a new surgical implant, incorporating new materials, may well exceed a decade and even then only short term performance predictions can be made.

Contributed papers presented at the conference organized by Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute.