A Powered Technique for Inserting Acetabular Cups

This work focused to investigate the use of a powered automatic technique to insert acetabular cup implants. The use of a percussion hammer tool as a surgical instrument to insert acetabular cup implants was investigated in current work. Pull-out, lever-out and torque tests were carried out on cup implants inserted into test block specimens of polyurethane (PU) using specifically designed experimental setups as a means of comparing the current mallet and cup introducer (manual impaction) technique against the percussion hammer tool (powered impaction) technique. The experimental tests were based on calculating the maximum forces or moments of forces required to remove the cup implants from a test block specimen, which was representative of the acetabulum of the pelvic bone. It was found, the cup implants inserted using the powered impaction technique required a greater applied force, moment of force and torque in order to remove the cup from the cavity of the PU block specimen in the pull-out, lever-out and torque tests respectively. In terms of stability, the percussion hammer tool has the potential to improve the seating of cup implants within the cavity using a more precise and controlled technique, thus improving the over stability of the inserted cup implant.