The hypothesis of this study was that acetabular liner vulnerability to scratching from femoral heads, roughened by third bodies embedded in the liner, is not significantly lower for highly cross-linked polyethylene (HXPE) than for conventional polyethylene (CPE). Six CPE and 6 HXPE acetabular liners were each reproducibly embedded with 5 cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo) beads then run for 10,000 cycles in a joint simulator. By visual rank ordering, there was low association between liner scratch severity and polyethylene type. The CPE and HXPE liner scratches were not significantly different in scratch peak-valley height or width or in liner roughness in the vicinity of the embedded beads. This model indicated that high cross-linking of polyethylene does not offer appreciable protection against severe scratching induced by large embedded third-body particles.
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