Wear of 36-mm BIOLOX® delta ceramic-on-ceramic bearing in total hip replacements under edge loading conditions

Ceramic-on-ceramic bearings have become of great interest due to the substantial improvements in the manufacturing techniques and material properties and due to polyethylene wear debris-induced osteolysis and the issues with metal wear debris and ion release by metal-on-metal bearings. Edge loading conditions due to translational malpositioning (microseparation conditions) have been shown to replicate clinically relevant wear mechanisms and increase the wear of ceramic-on-ceramic bearings; thus, it was necessary to test new bearing materials and designs under these adverse conditions. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of increasing head size on the wear of BIOLOX(R) delta ceramic-on-ceramic bearings under edge loading conditions due to rotational (steep cup inclination angle) and translational (microseparation) malpositioning. In this study, six 36-mm ceramic-on-ceramic bearings (BIOLOX delta, CeramTec, Germany) were tested under standard and edge loading conditions using the Leeds II hip simulator and compared to the 28-mm bearings tested and published previously under identical conditions. The mean wear rate under standard gait conditions was below 0.1 mm(3)/million cycles for both the 28-mm and the 36-mm ceramic-on-ceramic bearings, and increasing the inclination angle did not affect the wear rates. The introduction of microseparation to the gait cycle increased the wear rate of ceramic-on-ceramic bearing and resulted in stripe wear on the femoral heads. Under microseparation conditions, the wear rate of size 36-mm bearings (0.22 mm(3)/million cycles) was significantly higher (p = 0.004) than that for size 28-mm bearings (0.13 mm(3)/million cycles). This was due to the larger contact area for the larger bearings and deprived lubrication under edge loading conditions. The wear rate of BIOLOX delta ceramic-on-ceramic bearings under microseparation conditions was still very low (< 0.25 mm(3)/million cycles) compared to earlier generation ceramic-on-ceramic bearings (BIOLOX forte, 1.84 mm(3)/million cycles) and other bearing materials such as metal-on-metal bearings (2-8 mm(3)/million cycles).