The Influence of Contamination and Cleaning on the Strength of Modular Head Taper Fixation in Total Hip Arthroplasty

Intraoperative interface contamination of modular head-stem taper junctions of hip implants can lead to poor fixation strength, causing fretting and crevice corrosion or even stem taper fracture. Careful cleaning before assembly should help to reduce these problems. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of cleaning (with and without drying) contaminated taper interfaces on the taper fixation strength.Metal or ceramic heads were...