Today several million procedures of this type are conducted every year all over the world and more than half of them routinely use bone cements – and the proportion is increasing.
Bone cement is considered a reliable anchorage material with its ease of use in clinical practice and particularly because of its proven long survival rate with cemented-in prostheses.
Hip and knee registers for artificial joint replacements such as those in Sweden and Norway[2] clearly demonstrate the advantages of cemented-in anchorage.
[3] Synthetic, self-curing organic or inorganic material used to fill up a cavity or to create a mechanical fixation.
From current knowledge, cured bone cement can now be classified as safe, as originally demonstrated during the early studies on compatibility with the body conducted in the 1950s.
A novel biodegradable, non-exothermic, self-setting orthopedic cement composition based on amorphous magnesium phosphate (AMP) was developed.
[8] For a long time it was believed that the incompletely converted monomer released from bone cement was the cause of circulation reactions and embolism.
Embolisms can always occur during anchorage of artificial joints when material is inserted into the previously cleared femoral canal.
In the current state of knowledge it is easier to remove cement than to release a well-anchored cement-free prosthesis from the bone site.
Ultimately it is important for the stability of the revised prosthesis to detect possible loosening of the initial implant early to be able to retain as much healthy bone as possible.
A prosthesis fixed with bone cement offers very high primary stability combined with fast remobilization of patients.
The active substances are released locally after implant placement of the new joint, i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the new prosthesis and have been confirmed to reduce the danger of infection.