[Total hip replacement with isoelastic prosthesis in animals (author's transl)].

Uncemented fixation and low-fraction materials are the basis of this experiment. Plastics with an elasticity similar to the bone ("isoelasticity") show very propitious material qualities. The direct cementless incorporation of test bodies must be checked. In 63 sheep isoelastic total hip joints were implanted. After 2 till 51 weeks the animals were sacrificed and 44 specimen of hips and organs were explored macroscopically, radiologically, spherimetrically and histologically. The result was: 1. Plastic hip prosthesis are incorporated in the bone, but the boundary layer is built by a collagenous fiber tissue. 2. Loosening brings resoption of the bone and expansion of the structural changed soft tissue. 3. The transformation of the femoral cortex to osteoporosis is considered possibly as the consequence of an insufficient biological transfer of the weight. 4. Fractures of the femoral prosthesis-stem could not be observed. 5. The radiology allows at the pelvis prosthesis a concret statement concerning stability, on the femoral part a probable one. 6. The abrasion is minimal, the tissue reaction to abrasion products is unessential. 7. Small abrasion particles are carried of by the lymph tract and stored in the first regional gland. A more distant spreading is not demonstrable.