The best materials for hip joint implants have been discovered.

The results of the study may assist hospitals, surgeons, and patients in selecting an implant for hip joint replacement.

The aim of the research was to determine the materials of hip joint implants that are associated with the lowest risk of revision, thereby aiding orthopedic surgeons and patients in making informed joint decisions regarding the selection of hip implants with minimal revision risk prior to surgery.

An independent study, published on November 7 in the journal PLOS Medicine, was funded by CeramTec with support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Bristol Biomedical Research Centre.

Researchers analyzed data from the National Joint Registry (NJR) involving 1,026,481 patients who underwent hip joint arthroplasty over a 15-year period following their initial surgery (from 2003 to 2019).

Upon analyzing the data, the research team found that the risk of revision after hip arthroplasty is influenced by the type of material used for the bearing surface (the bearing surfaces are the moving parts of the artificial hip joint that slide against each other during movement).

According to the findings, hip implants with a delta ceramic or oxidized zirconium head and a highly cross-linked polyethylene liner or cup had the lowest revision risk within 15 years post hip replacement surgery.

These conclusions were corroborated when the research team examined the specific reasons for hip revision surgeries.

Further studies are needed to explore the relationship between implant materials and the risk of readmission, additional surgeries beyond revisions, mortality, and the economic efficiency of these materials.

Michael Whitehouse, Professor of Trauma and Orthopaedics at the Bristol Medical School and senior clinical lead for the study, explained: “Our research utilized data from one of the largest registries in the world, encompassing all public and private healthcare institutions in the UK. This means that the data obtained are more generalizable compared to those previously available, which were limited to broad categories of implant types or significantly smaller sample sizes.”

This study was not a randomized controlled trial, making it impossible to account for all factors that may influence the risk of revision.

National registries of hip replacement surgeries often employ broad classifications of the implants used, which does not fully capture the differences in revision risks associated with various types of implant materials grouped together.