Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 20, 2026

Potentiodynamic Corrosion Testing
Published on: September 4, 2016
Risk of cancer with metal-on-metal hip replacements: population based study
Keijo T Mäkelä1, Tuomo Visuri, Pekka Pulkkinen
1Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Surgical Hospital, Turku University Hospital, FI-20701 Turku, Finland. keijo.makela@fimnet.fi
Objective:
To assess the risk of cancer associated with modern primary metal-on-metal hip replacements.
Design:
Population based study.
Setting:
Nationwide retrospective comparative register.
Participants:
10,728 patients who underwent metal-on-metal total hip arthroplasty and 18,235 patients who underwent conventional metal-on-polyethylene, ceramic-on-polyethylene, and ceramic-on-ceramic total hip arthroplasty (the non-metal-on-metal cohort) in the Finnish Arthroplasty Register 2001-10. Data on cancer cases up to 2010 for these cohorts were extracted from the Finnish Cancer Registry.
Main Outcome Measures:
The relative risk of cancer was expressed as the ratio of observed to expected number of cases from the Finnish population--that is, the standardised incidence ratio. The relative risk of cancer in the metal-on-metal cohort compared with the non-metal-on-metal cohort was estimated with analyses of these ratios and Poisson regression.
Results:
The overall risk of cancer in patients with metal-on-metal hip implants was similar to that in the Finnish population (378 observed v 400 expected, standardised incidence ratio 0.95, 95% confidence interval 0.85 to 1.04). The overall risk of cancer in patients with metal-on-metal hip implants was also no higher than in patients who had received non-metal-on-metal hip implants (relative risk 0.92, 0.81 to 1.05).
Conclusions:
Metal-on-metal hip replacements are not associated with an increased overall risk of cancer during a mean follow-up of four years.
More Related Videos
08:19Protocol for the Evaluation of MRI Artifacts Caused by Metal Implants to Assess the Suitability of Implants and the Vulnerability of Pulse Sequences
Published on: May 17, 2018
09:08Biotribological Testing and Analysis of Articular Cartilage Sliding against Metal for Implants
Published on: May 14, 2020