Bone conservation of joint replacement

    The lower limb arthroplasty unit at Charing Cross Hospital (the Imperial College Campus for Musculoskeletal Surgery) performs 500 hip and knee replacements every year. We are particularly interested in bone conserving joint replacement (hip resurfacing and partial knee replacements). We are one of the highest relative users of these implants in the world.
Bone conserving joint replacement is particularly suitable for young (<65 years) and active people, because increasing longevity (current life expectancies are 82 years for men and 87 years for women) and desire for an active life, increases the chance of needing a redo joint replacement. The success of redo (revision) surgery is highly dependent on the amount of bone that is conserved at the first (primary) operation.

Research areas include:
1.    Outcome assessment of different implants
2.    A randomised controlled trial of computer assisted surgery
3.    Designing new implants

We use new technologies to monitor their performance:
1.    Low radiation dose CT scanning (Imperial Protocol) to measure implant position
2.    Mass spectrometry to measure metal wear debris in the blood to determine wear rate of metal on metal hips