All-metal hip implants are proving to be a brewing epidemic of injury to patients: the failure rate is much higher than metal-plus plastic or ceramic hip implants, and now, doctors are finding that the metallic debris from wear and tear incites an immune reaction from the body that causes tissue damage.
When tiny fragments of metal wear off of the hip, the body responds by having scavenger cells gobble up the metal. These cells can chew the metal into smaller fragments, but those fragments include electrically charged ions, which can trigger damage to surrounding tissue and early implant failure.
Read more in this article by the New York Times’ Barry Meier, who owns this failed hip implant story.