Has Wrought Cobalt-Chromium-Molybdenum Alloy Changed for the Worse Over Time?

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) failure due to tribocorrosion of modular junctions and resulting adverse local tissue reactions to corrosion debris have seemingly increased over the past few decades. Recent studies have found that chemically-induced column damage seen on the inner head taper is enabled by banding in the alloy microstructure of wrought cobalt-chromium-molybdenum alloy femoral heads, and is associated with more material loss than other tribocorrosion processes. It is unclear if alloy banding represents a recent phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to examine THAs implanted in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to determine if alloy microstructure and implant susceptibility to severe damage has increased over time.

Five hundred and forty-five modular heads were assessed for damage severity and grouped based on decade of implantation to serve as a proxy measure for manufacturing date. A subset of heads (n = 120) was then processed for metallographic analysis to visualize alloy banding.

We found that damage score distribution was consistent over the time periods, but the incidence of column damage significantly increased between the 1990s and 2000s. Banding also increased from the 1990s to 2000s, but both column damage and banding levels appear to recover slightly in the 2010s.

Banding, which provides preferential corrosion sites enabling column damage, has increased over the last 3 decades. No difference between manufacturers was seen, which may be explained by shared suppliers of bar stock material. These findings are important as banding can be avoidable, reducing the risk of severe column damage to THA modular junctions and failure due to adverse local tissue reactions.