Modularity at the head-neck junction of the femoral component in THA became popular as a design feature with advantages of decreasing implant inventory and allowing adjustment of leg length, offset, and soft tissue balancing through different head options. The introduction of a new modular interface to femoral stems that were previously monoblock, or nonmodular, comes with the potential for corrosion at the taper junction through mechanically assisted crevice corrosion. The incidence of revision hip arthroplasty is on the rise and along with improved wear properties of polyethylene and ceramic, use of larger femoral head sizes is becoming increasingly popular. Taper corrosion appears to be related to all of its geometric parameters, material combinations, and femoral head size. This review article discusses the pathogenesis, risk factors, clinical assessment, and management of taper corrosion at the head-neck junction.

The need for metallic biomaterials will always remain high with their growing demand in joint replacement in the aging population. This creates need for the market and researchers to focus on the development and advancement of the biometals. Desirable characteristics such as excellent biocompatibility, high strength, comparable elastic modulus with bones, good corrosion resistance, and high wear resistance are the significant issues to address for medical implants, particularly load-bearing orthopedic implants. The widespread use of titanium alloys in biomedical implants create a big demand to identify and assess the behavior and performance of these alloys when used in the human body. Being the most commonly used metal alloy in the fabrication of medical implants, mainly because of its good biocompatibility and corrosion resistance together with its high strength to weight ratio, the tribological behavior of these alloys have always been an important subject for study. Titanium alloys with improved wear resistance will of course enhance the longevity of implants in the body. In this paper, tribological performance of titanium alloys (medical grades) is reviewed. Various methods of surface modifications employed for titanium alloys are also discussed in the context of wear behavior.

This paper reviews various aspects of parylene coatings in medical devices and industry and summarises the fabrication methods of parylene coatings and their potential medical applications. In medical industry, two major beneficial properties of parylene include excellent barrier qualities and inherent bio-compatibility and bio-stability. The need for a bio-compatible material with good surface characteristics is of paramount importance. The recent findings indicate the application of parylene coatings in several areas of medical industry such as surgical instruments, implants, medical devices, mandrels, and medical electronics. Parylene has been slowly introduced into the research market, and has found to be competitive for available materials in the market. A review of the literature was undertaken to identify the prospective use to determine whether parylene coatings can survive the needs in medical industry.

The corrosion behaviour of new generation titanium alloys (β-type with low modulus) for medical implant applications is of paramount importance due to their possible detrimental effects in the human body such as release of toxic metal ions and corrosion products. In spite of remarkable advances in improving the mechanical properties and reducing the elastic modulus, limited studies have been done on the electrochemical corrosion behaviour of various types of low modulus titanium alloys including the effect of different beta-stabilizer alloying elements. This development should aim for a good balance between mechanical properties, design features, metallurgical aspects and, importantly, corrosion resistance. In this article, we review several significant factors that can influence the corrosion resistance of new-generation titanium alloys such as fabrication process, body electrolyte properties, mechanical treatments, alloying composition, surface passive layer, and constituent phases. The essential factors and their critical features are discussed. The impact of various amounts of α and β phases in the microstructure, their interactions, and their dissolution rates on the surface passive layer and bulk corrosion behaviour are reviewed and discussed in detail. In addition, the importance of different corrosion types for various medical implant applications is addressed in order to specify the significance of every corrosion phenomenon in medical implants.