Novel zirconia/alumina composites for TJR

In recent years, some novel ceramic materials have been investigated as an alternative bearing material to conventional alumina or zirconia in total joint replacement. This paper focuses on the material properties such as fracture strength, phase stability and wear properties of a newly developed zirconia/alumina composite. This ceramic is composed of ceria-stabilized zirconia and alumina. Due to its extremely high toughness, this ceramic showed higher values in the ultimate compressive load test than surgical-grade yttria-stabilized zirconia. In addition, the wear characteristics of this composite were found to be comparable to those of conventional alumina or zirconia in the ceramic-on-ceramic and ceramic-on-polyethylene wear tests. The present data are encouraging and we consider that this new composite ceramic is very promising as a bearing material in total joint replacement.