As our population ages and life spans extend, and as total joint replacement is being performed in younger, more active patients, revision surgeries associated with prosthetic wear are becoming common. In 2002, 43,000 revision hip replacements and 35,000 revision knee replacements were carried out in the USA, the majority being due to wear-associated loosening and periprosthetic osteolysis. Revision procedures are technically more difficult than primary procedures, with a higher complication rate, a less predictable clinical outcome and a higher cost. The significant bone loss that accompanies wear-related failure necessitates extensive bone grafting and special prosthetic devices. Consequently, the clinician should know the basic principles relevant to prosthetic wear to prevent, diagnose, and treat patients with wear-associated problems. ? ? The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons' 2007 Osteolysis and Implant Wear: Biological, Biomedical Engineering and Surgical Principles (IW) symposium will serve to identify clinical, biological, engineering and material questions relevant to implant wear and to examine differences among gender, race, and ethnicity. The IW symposium will be co-organized by Stuart Goodman MD, PhD, and Timothy Wright, PhD, who co-chaired prior workshops on wear in 1995 and 2000. Much progress has been made in the past seven years, making it again necessary to answer questions related to implant wear. ? ? The IW symposium will be on November 9-11, 2007, in Austin, TX at the Austin Marriott, a fully-accessible hotel and meeting center. Each session will be moderated by a physician or researcher with expertise in the session topic. The faculty are a diverse group of forty women and men from the US and abroad. Other participants will include five Young Investigators (YI), seven representatives from industry, and four potential government representatives. The YI Program will give five residents/researchers the opportunity to attend the IW symposium with principal investigators in the field. YI applicants must be under 42 years of age or less than eight years beyond training. The YI applicants in past symposia have represented a wide spectrum of racial and ethnic diversity, and approximately 30-40% of YI applicants have been female. ? ? The IW symposium will serve orthopaedic surgeons, biomaterials scientists, biomechanical engineers, and biologists interested in improving the long-term clinical success of joint replacements. The results of the symposium will be disseminated to the musculoskeletal community through a special issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS), which will be mailed to 16,000 AAOS Fellows, and will also be freely available to the public on the JAAOS website and AAOS Orthopaedic Knowledge Online. ? ? ? ?
