Metal on metal wear issues - hip replacement

[Harrison]

This topic concerns hip arthroplasty, which is certainly different than spinal arthroplasty (disc replacement), but the concerns of metal wear are shared by many of us. Note also the comments.
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Poisonous hip implants 'putting thousands of British patients at risk' as medical watchdog launches investigation

Medical regulators forced to take 'prompt action' over safety concerns
Metal hip implants could put more than 30,000 patients at risk of poisoning

Hip replacements fitted in tens of thousands of patients are being investigated amid fears they may be poisoning them. Medical regulators are considering new evidence about ‘metal on metal’ implants disintegrating, destroying muscle tissue and leaking metal into the bloodstream. It comes as surgeons say that implants which have now been recalled have a failure rate of nearly 50 per cent after six years. Some patients, however, may be unaware of the dangers.

Hip replacements, and less drastic hip resurfacing, usually offer a patient a 95 per cent chance of pain-free mobility for ten to 15 years.
But problems can occur with all-metal implants – used on 40,000 patients – when friction between the components causes tiny metal fragments to break off.

In 2010, two hip implants made by company DePuy were withdrawn from the market after concerns about their safety.

Read more: Poisonous hip implants 'putting thousands of British patients at risk' as medical watchdog launches investigation | Mail Online

Poisonous hip implants 'putting thousands of British patients at risk' as medical watchdog launches investigation | Mail Online

[laid up doc]

every healthcare professional who doesn't do spine but works w/ implants/metals to whom i have spoken can't believe there isn't a non-chromium/cobalt artificial disc available in the US.

they all totally understand when i tell them about why i went to Europe to get a titanium implant.

very glad the option was available to me...

[tenniskid]

Thanks for posting this link Harrison.

This issue was also a real concern for me when I was making my decision to undergo artificial disc replacement. This issue was something that I tried to research thoroughly, as the Maverick disc was the only option presented to me. Unfortunately there is not a lot of info out there relating to artificial discs.

For anyone looking for information regarding total disc replacement and metal ion wear, please see the below a link to a recent study (published in 2011) that examines this issue.

http://web.jbjs.org.uk/content/93-B/7/949.full.pdf

In particular the study addresses the methodology of two previous studies that reported high metal ions in human serum following TDR at the 14 month mark with Maverick discs, suggesting that these studies may have reported contamination from the needle (although this is not confirmed). In addition, the study references two case studies where TDR with the maverick disc failed due to ion hypersensitivity. The study also notes that malpositioning of the implant is also known to elevate metal ion wear in total hip replacement (see results section).

However the above study concludes, "These results suggest that there is minimal cause for concernabout high metal ion concentrations after TDR, as the levels appear to be only moderately elevated. However, spinal surgeons using a metal-on-metal TDR should still be aware of concerns expressed in hip replacement literature about toxicity from elevated metal ion levels, and inform their patients appropriately."

This study is limited in that only 10 ADR patients were studied.

I will let people come to their own view on this topic.