John Charnley was an English orthopedic surgeon and biomedical engineer who developed the modern low-friction total hip replacement. Working through the 1950s and 1960s, he engineered a hip prosthesis combining a small-diameter metal femoral head with a low-friction ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene socket, cemented into the bone with acrylic bone cement, solving the wear and loosening problems that had defeated earlier hip implant designs, and he founded a dedicated hip-surgery center at Wrightington Hospital to refine and teach the technique. His design became the template for the total hip arthroplasty performed on millions of patients worldwide. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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Why did John Charnley pair a small femoral head with a plastic socket?
To lower friction, using a small head in a wear-resistant polyethylene socket.
Charnley noticed that prosthetic hip joints squeaked in patients who had had partial hip replacements. He suspected high frictional resistance and reasoned that a femoral head of smaller diameter within an acetabular socket would fix it. He then searched for a durable socket material and found ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, an extremely strong plastic with high abrasion and wear resistance.
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Source John Charnley (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributorsLead sentence 1tier 2Quote, Lead sentence 1
Sir John Charnley, (29 August 1911 – 5 August 1982) was an English orthopaedic surgeon.
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1. John Charnley (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Sir John Charnley, (29 August 1911-5 August 1982) was an English orthopaedic surgeon.
- In Field: Biomedical Engineering
In Group: Medical Device Inventors, Introduction
Sir John Charnley, (29 August 1911-5 August 1982) was an English orthopaedic surgeon.
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Invented: Total Hip Replacement, History sectionQuote, Invented: Total Hip Replacement, History section
In the 1960s, John Charnley at Wrightington General Hospital combined a metal prosthesis with a PTFE acetabular cup before settling on a metal/polyethylene design.
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