Effects of eccentric screwing on the initial stability of the acetabular cup in bone of different qualities

Abstract

Acetabular cup loosening is one of the major failure models of total hip replacement (THR), which is mostly due to insufficient initial stability of the cup. Previous studies have demonstrated that cup stability is affected by the quality of the host bone and the surgical skill when inserting screws. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects on the initial stability of the acetabular cup of eccentric screwing in bone of different qualities. In this study, hemispherical cups were fixed into bone specimens constructed from artificial foam with three elastic moduli using one to three screws. The effects of two types of screw eccentricity (offset and angular) on the cup stability of the acetabular cup were also evaluated. The experimental results indicate that in the presence of ideal screwing, the cup was stable in bone specimens constructed from foam with the highest elastic modulus. In addition, increasing the number of ideal screws enhanced the cup stability, especially in bone specimens constructed from soft foam. Moreover, the cup stability was most affected by offset eccentric screw(s) in the hard-foam bone specimens and by angular eccentric screw(s) in the soft-foam bone specimens. The reported results indicate that the presence of screw eccentricity affects the initial stability of the acetabular cup. Surgeons should keep this in mind when performing screw insertions in THR. However, care is necessary when translating these results to the intraoperative situation due to the experiments being conducted under laboratory conditions, and hence future studies should attempt to replicate the results reported here in vivo.