Prosthesis (i.e. – artificial body members) – parts thereof – or ai – Implantable prosthesis – Bone
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-07
2002-12-24
Snow, Bruce (Department: 3738)
Prosthesis (i.e., artificial body members), parts thereof, or ai
Implantable prosthesis
Bone
C623S023520, C623S023220
Reexamination Certificate
active
06497728
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a metal jacket for a cementless artificial joint stem, and particularly to a metal jacket for a cementless artificial joint stem, with said jacket secured to the bone in such a manner that the cementless artificial joint stem can slide relative to the bone and said jacket enclosing the surface of the cementless artificial joint stem. The invention also relates to a cementless artificial joint having the artificial joint stem enclosed in the jacket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, an artificial hip joint, for example, consists of an acetabular part and a femoral or thigh bone part, wherein the acetabular and femoral parts are made of either metal, plastic, or ceramic, independently.
And the human femur is formed of the soft cancellous bone in the metaphyseal region and hard cortical bone in the diaphyseal region. Therefore, in order to insert an artificial joint into the human body, operation is conducted in such a way that the bone canal is reamed out at the proximal site, the stem of artificial joint is inserted and finally anchorage is conducted by using cement, or in other case of not using cement, a stem having a porous or roughened surface layer on the outer circumference is inserted so as to allow the surface to get physiological interlocking with the bone as it grows.
The art for surgical operation based on the artificial joint using cement out of the two methods as described above is disclosed in the Korean patent publication 1814/1985 to the present applicants as the patentee, titled “Torsion resistant artificial hip joint”.
Referring to
FIG. 1
, the art is briefly reviewed.
The artificial joint
1
is integrally composed of a head
2
, neck
3
, collar
4
and stem
5
, starting with the top. The leading end of the collar
4
is curved to be secured tightly in the inner top edge of the cortex of femur. The stem
5
is in a curved column with the top cross section resembling an ellipse which gradually varies to a circle at the bottom. Such a shape of the stem
5
is intended for protection from rotating due to the compressive force applied vertically from the top of joint and the lateral force applied in perpendicular direction to the stem of joint at the head.
Further, on the upper external surface of such a stem
5
a blade
7
with an appropriate thickness is provided protrusively in longitudinal direction to prevent the joint from turning in the femur even in the case of a torque generated in an arbitrary direction after a surgery, wherein a fixing hole
8
is formed in the center of the blade
7
.
On the inward side of the blade
7
, the stem
5
is formed with a number of lateral grooves at certain longitudinal intervals, in which grooves iron wires
9
in chain form are inserted in a manner of wrapping the stem. On the surface of the stem
5
including chain-like wires
9
, cement
6
is coated to a certain thickness. Such a process of pre-coating with cement
6
is to facilitate adhesion with the cement used in the surgical operation and to reduce the heat generated during curing period through the reduced use of cement.
In order to introduce such an artificial joint in a human long bone, reaming is carried out at the bone canal beforehand so that the artificial joint
1
may be inserted with the stem
5
, after appropriate amount of cement is injected thereto. Subsequently, the stem
5
is inserted in the cement-injected area, so that this cement may adhere with the pre-coated cement layer
6
on the surface of the stem
5
, with the result that the stem
5
can be firmly secured in the femur.
However, the artificial joint using the cement as described above has the drawback in that the connection is weak due to the fragile cement connection between the joint stem and the bone canal.
In order to compensate for such a drawback, the connection between the femur and the joint stem was modified so as to be physiologically interlocked at the joint stem with the ingrowth or ongrowth of the bone into the porous or rough surface of the stem.
In particular, a joint stem, the surface of which is either made porous or roughened through grit blasting with fine stones, is inserted into the bone canal through a surgical operation. Then, with gradual growth of the bone, the bone physiologically gets interlocked with the porous or roughened surface layer to fix the stem to the femur.
The cementless artificial joint based on a physiological method as described above has the merit over an artificial joint using cement in the respect of strong interface for a biologically active young patient. However, with this cementless artificial joint, there is a risk of impeding the process of the ingrowth of the bone to the joint stem due to the over-sized gap of the bone canal in the magnitude of several millimeters.
In addition, the vertical force applied on the head of the stem may act as the shear force at the interface with the bone to produce a fibrous tissue membrane on the bone, to thereby form an effective joint space. Then the wear particles produced at the plastic cup may penetrate into the gap (effective joint space) formed between the bone and the stem and accelerate osteolysis of the bone as a serious drawback.
Further, for the case of a stem with all of its surface porous, a substantial part of vertical force is transferred to the lower side and thereby the upper side of a femur is associated with the bone resorption from low stress due to stress shielding. And in the case that only the upper part of the stem is made porous, the lower part can produce a micro movement due to the weak connection, resulting in the problem of causing a pain.
Further, in the case of revision surgery because of the trouble with a cementless artificial joint, removal of the stem is very challenging on the ground that the connection between the joint stem and the femur is a physiological one based on the ingrowth of the bone into the porous surface of the metal stem.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, the present invention was created to resolve the problem with the conventional art as described above and the object of the present invention is to provide a metal jacket for a cementless artificial joint stem, wherein shear force negative to the service life of an artificial joint can be markedly reduced and stress shielding phenomena can also be markedly relieved, due to the construction of the jacket which can be fixed to the femur and can enclose the surface of the stem so as to allow for the stem of artificial joint to slide vertically relative to the bone canal, and wherein osteolysis of a bone due to the infiltration of wear particles can be minimized by curbing the gap formation between the bone canal and the stem.
Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a cementless artificial joint in which a stem is covered by a metal jacket for a cementless artificial joint stem.
To achieve the above first object, there is provided, according to an aspect of the invention, a metal jacket for the stem of a cementless artificial joint, wherein the jacket is so formed as to enclose at least a part of the stem of a cementless artificial joint, after the jacket is inserted longitudinally in the opening formed in the bone canal of a human body, and wherein on the surface of the metal jacket a surface-roughened metal layer is formed so that the bone can make interlocking with the metal jacket as the bone gets on-growth.
Preferably, the metal layer is formed by wires in a zigzag or meandering form according to an embodiment of the invention.
According to another embodiment of the invention, the metal layer is formed by a surface-roughened thin metal bag with a number of small opening on the circumferential surface of the bag in longitudinal direction.
According to still other embodiment of the invention, the metal layer may be formed by a thin corrugated metal bag.
Preferably it is also provided that the inner surface of said metal jacket is formed with a plastic film having a high resistan
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Snow Bruce
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