Femoral cementing techniques in total hip replacement

Clinical studies have shown that second-generation femoral cementing techniques at total hip replacement result in a superior fixation of the femoral stem. In an effort to determine what benefits further developments in cementing techniques would provide, we compared the morphology of the cement mantles produced by traditional finger-packing and gun-insertion techniques. The porosity of the cement mantles was quantified using computerised image analysis. The finger-packing technique caused large air inclusions that resulted in large pores in the substance of the cement mantle, whereas the cement-gun technique did not result in any individual pore with an equivalent diameter greater than 3 mm. The mean porosity of cement mantles prepared using the finger-insertion technique was 8.3%, whereas the mean porosity in gun-prepared mantles was 1.7%. The use of a cement gun significantly reduced the porosity of femoral cement mantles (P = 0.02). Reduction of defects in the substance of the cement mantle may account for the increased survival of femoral prostheses inserted when second-generation techniques were used. Further reduction of the porosity of the cement mantle could not be expected to produce as dramatic a clinical improvement in prosthesis fixation.