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Clinical relevance of corrosion patterns attributed to inflammatory cell‐induced corrosion: A retrieval study
Author(s) -
Di Laura Anna,
Hothi Harry S.,
Meswania Jay M.,
Whittaker Robert K.,
de Villiers Danielle,
Zustin Jozef,
Blunn Gordon W.,
Skinner John A.,
Hart Alister J.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of biomedical materials research part b: applied biomaterials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1552-4981
pISSN - 1552-4973
DOI - 10.1002/jbm.b.33540
Subject(s) - corrosion , clinical significance , metal , materials science , titanium alloy , metallurgy , alloy , medicine , pathology
In vitro studies have shown that human osteoclasts can corrode stainless steel and titanium leading to the production of metal ions responsible for inflammatory reactions. Moreover, traces of cellular activities on metal orthopaedic explants have recently been reported as inflammatory cell‐induced (ICI) corrosion being the result of the cells sealing on the metal surfaces and releasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) through Fenton‐like reactions. The extent and clinical relevance of this phenomenon has yet to be understood. We analysed a cohort of 100 CoCr alloy hips collected at our retrieval centre; we performed macroscopic and microscopic screening and used statistical analysis to correlate our findings with implant and clinical variables. We found that 59% of our implants had evidence of surface damage consistent with what has previously been described as cell‐induced corrosion. There was a significant association between the patterns and aseptic loosening for the ASR modular ( r = −0.488, p = 0.016) and the Durom modular ( r = 0.454, p = 0.026). This is the largest implant retrieval study to examine the phenomena of so‐called ICI corrosion and is the first to investigate its clinical relevance. We recommend further work to determine the role of cells in the damage patterns observed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 105B: 155–164, 2017.