UHMWPE Biomaterials for Joint Implants: Structures, Properties and Clinical Performance

This book presents a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review of the latest progresses in UHMWPE biomaterials, which has been critical for the performance and longevity of joint implants. Oriented by clinical challenges to UHMWPE-based joint implants, it introduces the processing, crosslinking, structural manipulation, oxidation mechanism, stabilization, drug delivery, and wear, as well as clinical performance, biomechanics, and simulated studies of joint implant based on UHMWPE with low wear, which are aimed to tackle or minimize the adverse effect related to wear and wear debris. These contributions provide fundamentals of chemistry and physics of UHMWPEs to help understand the clinical performances of UHMWPE based joint implants. Perspectives to next generation UHMWPE to meet the unmet challenges in clinical use are included.

Dr. Jun Fu is a Professor of Biomedical Polymer Materials at Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He obtained his PhD at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry CAS, and moved to the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany, and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, before taking his current position in 2010. Dr. Fu’s expertise is diverse, including the synthesis, structural manipulation, and functionalization of polymer materials with extraordinary performances for biomedical devices.

Dr. Zhongmin Jin is a Professor of biotribology and biomechanics at Southwest Jiaotong University. He obtained his PhD at Leeds University. Dr. Jin has been applied tribological principles into artificial joints and has rich experience in the tribology of artificial joints. He is the winner of Water-Arbitration award, Bronze Medal of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK. He has been the guest editor or editorial board member of Journal of Tribology, Journal of Bionic Engineering, Medical Engineering and Physics, and Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research, etc. 

Dr. Jinwu Wang is a Professor and Chief Physician of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, affiliated to School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China. Dr. Wang is also an Adjunct Professor of School of Biomedical Engineering, SJTU. He is the principle investigator of 4 national research projects from Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and NSFC, and 10 provincial research projects. He has participated in editing 7 books (Associate Editor of 3 books), applied for 5 national invention patents, and published over 40 journal articles. As the leading researcher, Dr. Wang has won the First Prize of Shanghai Medicine Science and Technology Advancement Award, and the First Prize of Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award. He is a contributing Editor of Chinese Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, Editor of Journal of Clinical Rehabilitative Tissue Engineering Research, and a Standing Committee Member of Traumatic Orthopedics Academy affiliated to Chinese Association of Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons. His main research interests include: Neural prostheses; implantable electrical stimulators; medical rehabilitation robotics; artificial joints; and trauma biomaterials.