Project title: Limiting the Impaction Force during Total Hip Arthroplasty

Supervisors: Dr Jonathan Jeffers, Ruben Doyle

Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA), or hip replacement surgery, is a common medical procedure used to restore healthy hip function in patients suffering from degenerative hip conditions. Current surgical practice utilises a modular hip prosthesis, with a tapered junction to fix the femoral head and stem. Although this provides advantages in terms of intraoperative flexibility, wear and fracture issues of component parts have been reported. This has been attributed to surgical technique, with an emphasis on the force used to fix the femoral head to the stem. 

This project focused on proving a method that would to allow surgeons to quantify and limit the force they apply during THA to within recommended bounds. It was hypothesised that this could be achieved through utilising the energy absorbing properties of a 3D printed metal lattice structure, developed by the biomechanics research group at Imperial College.  Through experimental research this concept has been proven and work has been completed on incorporating the metal lattice structure into a surgical tool.