Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun;39(6):1174-1183.
doi: 10.1002/jor.24840. Epub 2020 Sep 14.

Stress shielding at the bone-implant interface: Influence of surface roughness and of the bone-implant contact ratio

Maria Letizia Raffa  1   2 , Vu-Hieu Nguyen  1   3 , Philippe Hernigou  4   5 , Charles-Henri Flouzat-Lachaniette  4   5 , Guillaume Haiat  6
Affiliations
Free article

Stress shielding at the bone-implant interface: Influence of surface roughness and of the bone-implant contact ratio

Maria Letizia Raffa et al. J Orthop Res. 2021 Jun.
Free article

Abstract

Short and long-term stabilities of cementless implants are strongly determined by the interfacial load transfer between implants and bone tissue. Stress-shielding effects arise from shear stresses due to the difference of material properties between bone and the implant. It remains difficult to measure the stress field in periprosthetic bone tissue. This study proposes to investigate the dependence of the stress field in periprosthetic bone tissue on (i) the implant surface roughness, (ii) the material properties of bone and of the implant, (iii) the bone-implant contact ratio. To do so, a microscale two-dimensional finite element model of an osseointegrated bone-implant interface was developed where the surface roughness was modeled by a sinusoidal surface. The results show that the isostatic pressure is not affected by the presence of the bone-implant interface while shear stresses arise due to the combined effects of a geometrical singularity (for low surface roughness) and of shear stresses at the bone-implant interface (for high surface roughness). Stress-shielding effects are likely to be more important when the bone-implant contact ratio value is low, which corresponds to a case of relatively low implant stability. Shear stress reach a maximum value at a distance from the interface comprised between 0 and 0.1 time roughness wavelength λ and tend to 0 at a distance from the implant surface higher than λ, independently from bone-implant contact ratio and waviness ratio. A comparison with an analytical model allows validating the numerical results. Future work should use the present approach to model osseointegration phenomena.

Keywords: bone-implant interface; finite element modeling; osseointegration; stress-shielding; surface roughness.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Paul JP. Strength requirements for internal and external prostheses. J Biomech. 1999;32(4):381-393.
    1. Engh CA Jr, Young AM, Engh CA Sr, Hopper RH Jr. Clinical consequences of stress shielding after porous-coated total hip arthroplasty. Clinical Orthop Relat Res. 2003;417:157-163.
    1. Kusano T, Seki T, Higuchi Y, Takegami Y, Osawa Y, Ishiguro N. Preoperative canal bone ratio is related to high-degree stress shielding: a minimum 5-year follow-up study of a proximally hydroxyapatite-coated straight tapered titanium femoral component. J Arthroplasty. 2018;33(6):1764-1769.
    1. García-Rey E, Carbonell-Escobar R, Cordero-Ampuero J, García-Cimbrelo E. Outcome of a hemispherical porous-coated acetabular component with a proximally hydroxyapatite-coated anatomical femoral component: an update at 23 to 26 years′ follow-up. Bone Joint J. 2019;101(4):378-385.
    1. Arabnejad S, Johnston B, Tanzer M, Pasini D. Fully porous 3D printed titanium femoral stem to reduce stress-shielding following total hip arthroplasty. J Orth Res. 2017;35(8):1774-1783.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources