In-vitro wear simulation of sequentially crosslinked and annealed polyethylene acetabular liners: 14 years of results

Published clinical data performance at 5 years documented with 32 mm bearings show clinical values ranging from 0.008 mm/yr to 0.015 mm/yr. The 32 mm bearing size represents 127 samples in this data set, and the mean calculated linear penetration is 0.008 mm/mc. This value compares favorably to the reported penetration values, assuming that 1 million hip wear simulation cycles approximates closely to one year of in-vivo cycles. In addition, wear analysis showed no effect of shelf-life on wear and maintained its low wear characteristics regardless of polyethylene thickness or head size.