But some do within only a few years. When the metal ball rotates, it shoves off bits of plastic on the joint cup in the hip socket. Antibodies then eat these foreign bodies of plastic but will some times start gobbling healthy cells, causing atrophy to the femur and loosening the prosthesis. The new hip implant, manufactured by Sulzer Orthopedics, is supposed to prevent the wearing of plastic. Since it's inception in 1988, the product has been used in 80,000 hip replacements worldwide.
Gulf Coast is the first hospital in the area to use the new product in surgery.
A nurse provides a look at the prosthetic device used in the hip-replacement surgery. But it's not a dramatic leap of faith. It doesn't require us to change our techniques. After anesthesia, the man's legs and exposed areas were covered in sterile plastic and wraps to minimize infection risks during surgery. The surgeon made an incision, dislocated the hip and began carving out the femur to accept the metal stem and fit the cup into the hipbone.