Vitamin E Poly Hits The Market
BY DAVID KRESSEL, MAY 14, 2007
Biomet announced it gained FDA clearance to market the first vitamin E stabilized highly crosslinked polyethylene acetabular cup liner. Using the trade name E-Poly, Biomet's product uses the antioxidant vitamin E to reduce wear of the poly liner as oxidation contributes to wear. The press release indicates this product has 95%-99% less wear than Biomet's ArCom liners (which are not highly crosslinked) in in vitro studies. ArCom XL shows 50% less wear than ArCom, so the E-Poly is still much better than Biomet's best poly liners on the market, but it still has significantly greater wear rates than metal-on-metal and ceramic-on-ceramic systems.
In our notes from the Society for Biomaterials conference, we pointed out that Zimmer was developing a vitamin E poly, but it seems they were playing catch up!
