What are artificial joints made of?

  The hip and knee joints are complex load-bearing joints, and under load, the prosthesis is subjected to a combination of tension, compression, torsion and interface shear and repeated fatigue and wear. Therefore, the prosthetic material must have medium strength, plasticity and fatigue, wear and corrosion resistance. The safe load capacity of the entire joint should be at least 7 times its body weight. In addition, because the prosthesis is implanted in the body for a long time, the material should have good biocompatibility, non-toxic side effects, resistance to chemical and electrochemical corrosion of body fluids, and it is also desired that the specific gravity is light and the elastic modulus is close to that of human cortical bone. In view of this situation, the current biomaterials are not perfect, but can only be selected according to the comprehensive performance matching, as far as possible to meet the requirements of the physiological environment and joint mechanics. Therefore, the life span of currently used artificial joints is limited.  Different components of the artificial joint are made of different materials, and the artificial joint prosthesis is fixed to the bone tissue by an appropriate method, and the joint surface of the prosthesis is polished. Currently, cobalt, titanium, and steel-based alloy metal materials make up the surfaces of the femoral head of the artificial hip joint and the femoral condyles of the knee joint, ultra-high polymer polyethylene materials make up the acetabular shares of the artificial hip joint and the tibial plateau portion of the artificial knee joint, and polymethyl methacrylate bone cement is used for fixing the artificial joint prosthesis to the bone tissue.  In recent years, new research results have been applied to the clinical practice of artificial joint replacement. Bioceramic materials are being developed and widely used in clinical practice; pretreatment of the prosthesis surface to increase the fixation effect of the prosthesis and bone and to prevent loosening and detachment; changing the chemical composition of the alloy and improving the processing process to solve the problems of wear, fatigue fracture and loosening of the prosthesis stem; new techniques of using bone cement and the design of the prosthesis shape that is more in line with the biomechanical characteristics of the human body to improve the fixation effect of the prosthesis and reduce the complications of prosthesis loosening; improve surgical techniques and design more accurate surgical positioning devices, which are now designed to be increasingly accurate and ensure good prosthesis positioning in most cases.