South Australian Medical Heritage Society Inc

The pioneer of total hip replacement was Professor Sir John Charnley from Manchester .He was qualified in both Medicine and Engineering and introduced the concept of replacing both surfaces of arthritic joints. The initial replacements involved the hip. The surfaces were metal on Teflon later replaced by metal on high-density Polyethylene.

Metal on metal prostheses, which failed earlier are now used more frequently because of advances in metallurgy. More recently metal and Polyethylene have in some situations been replaced by Ceramic on Ceramic because of a low coefficient of friction.

Because of the success of hip joint replacements the procedure has now spread to the knee, shoulder, wrist ankle and metatarsal and metacarpal joints.
                         (See other hip replacement surgery here)

Charnley type hip replacement prosthesis. Acetabular & femoral components both metal

[two photos]

 

 

 

Charnley type metal & plastic prosthesis components

Charney type metal & plastic prosthesis assembled

 

-o0o-