The aseptic loosening is one of the main reasons for revision surgery in total hip arthroplasty. During the loosening process of hip stems, tolerable relative movements of 30-100 µm between stem and bone are exceeded and induce a characteristic progressive loosening cascade that leads to a gradual loss of fixation due to a degradation of the surrounding bone. Up to date, there is no reliable diagnostic method to detect such a loosening at an early stage.
The aim of subproject A03 is to enable an early detection of an hip stem loosening and to be able to distinguish aseptic from septic loosening in order to counteract an excessive bone destruction early enough.
