The clinical implications of elevated blood metal ion concentrations in asymptomatic patients with MoM hip resurfacings: a cohort study

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This paper demonstrated for the first time that asymptomatic patients with elevated blood cobalt and chromium levels are at high risk of developing clinical problems over the following years. *Note, below you can see the femoral neck and prosthesis of a male patient in this study with a Birmingham Hip Resurfacing who was found to have blood cobalt of 155 µg/l on routine screening. He had no symptoms but elected for surgery 2 years later when he developed progressive discomfort in his hip. There were no obvious changes on plain x-rays. As can be seen on the right, there was a large cavity in the femoral neck filled with metal-stained, caseous material.

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Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash