Leaching out from acrylic bone cement. Experimental evaluation.

Using common salt and C.M.W. bone cement mixture with Barium it has been shown that even with relatively high concentrations, only a small proportion of salt is released. This release seems to be a purely surface phenomenon and the amount released is directly proportional to the surface are of the cement. If a water soluble antibiotic and NaCl are released from the bone cement by a comparable mechanism, the inclusion of antibiotic/methylmethacrylate is difficult to justify in clinical practice.