The revolution for hip prosthesis arrives: the ceramic coating

Surgeon Calistri: "The novelty is that the material, ceramic, is biocompatible and this allows us to save bone during the operation"

'Goodbye' to metal in hip replacements. The long-awaited revolution has arrived for arthroplasty that will have the possibility of using ceramic coating (CoCHR) in Europe. The company MatOrtho announced that it has received the CE mark and confirmation of compliance with European safety and performance standards for its ReCerf*, the first commercially available ceramic hip resurfacing implant in the world . The implant was first approved by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration in November 2024. Since its first use in 2018, more than 1,600 patients have received the device. "Patient-reported outcomes are extremely positive and the revision rate remains very low for up to six years," the company emphasizes.

The arrival of the new coating will revolutionize the hip surgery sector and will also change the expectations for patients. In Italy, 100,000 operations are performed every year, a growing figure. Once all the procedures are completed, the new coating should be available to Italian specialists by the end of the year. " The revolutionary innovation is the material: ceramic is biocompatible and this allows us to save bone during the operation . The genesis is a patent that makes the ceramic 'porous' and the surface perfectly integrable with the bone. While before a sheet of titanium was needed otherwise the bone would not integrate. So the need to use metal 'goes away' ", explains Alessandro Calistri, specialist in Orthopedic and Traumatological Surgery of the hip and professor of Prosthetic hip surgery at the School of Specialization in Orthopedics and Traumatology at the University of Rome Sapienza, to Adnkronos Salute.

The data from the study accompanying the green light, published in 'Bone & Joint', "demonstrate excellent improvement in patient-reported outcomes and survival of up to five years, regardless of gender or implant size, comparing favorably with MoMhr" or metal-on-metal implants.

How will this major innovation impact the sector, given the growing numbers of hip injuries and an increasingly elderly population? "Now the most important thing is the safe introduction of this ceramic coating, I don't expect a dramatic impact but a slow but inexorable one", Calistri replies. The point is that this type of coating will be used only in a few highly specialized centers and in Italy there are few of them, as well as in Europe, because there is a need for in-depth knowledge and a more complex capacity for surgeons. The category will therefore have to 'update' quickly in order not to miss the train.

In September, Rome will host Ista 2025, the International Society for technology in Arthroplasty, the event that will bring together engineers and orthopedic surgeons in the Capital. The presidents of the event are Professor Stefano Gumina and Alessandro Calistri. "It will be an opportunity to take stock of this great innovation in our field," adds Calistri.

"This prosthesis is mistakenly associated with sportsmen, but that is not the case," concludes Calistri. "Think of a tennis champion like Andy Murray who had hip surgery and needed excellent functionality and in fact even won a tournament after the operation, and has a metal-metal prosthesis. But ceramic is the only biocompatible material we have, in orthodontics it is already used successfully and has replaced metals, this will allow us to provide an answer to women too, preserving more bone."