Soft-tissue response to total hip surface replacement.

Tissue reaction to prosthesis wear debris and its relationship to prosthetic loosening was investigated. Eighteen dogs underwent hip surface replacement; 6 animals accounted for 6 control and 6 carbon hips, and 13 experimental animals accounted for 13 implanted carbon and 13 cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo) prostheses. Both kinds of prostheses articulated against a high-density polyethylene acetabular component. One year after implantation, tissue response to the prostheses was evaluated according to a semiquantitative method, and a total tissue score indicating the degree of tissue response was obtained. The total tissue score was then compared with the normalized final vertical ground reaction force (GRF) for each hip in the animals with bilateral hip replacements. Compared with the controls, significantly greater tissue response was seen in both kinds of prosthetic hips (p = .001). No statistically significant difference in the tissue response of the two types of hip prostheses was noted, although the tissue response score of the CoCrMo demonstrated a trend toward more severe reaction than the carbon. No statistical difference in tissue reaction was noted for loosened components as compared with tightly fixed components. Amount of wear debris was the best predictor of component loosening. Gait analysis demonstrated a statistically significant negative correlation between GRF and total tissue score (p = .036), and between GRF and wear debris score (p = .034). The results of this study suggest that GRF may predict the amount of wear debris in the tissues surrounding a total hip surface arthroplasty, and that severity of pain is related to the degree of tissue response.