New aspects in the histological examination of polyethylene wear particles in failed total joint replacements.

The most important long-term complication in total joint replacements is aseptic osteolysis. Wear particles such as polyethylene (PE) debris are considered to be one of the causes that play a central role. Several studies indicated that PE can be visualised in paraffin-embedded tissue sections not only by polarised light, but also after oil red staining. To determine whether oil red staining enables sensitive detection of PE, we examined staining of mechanically-produced PE particles by oil red. Furthermore, we studied oil red staining of paraffin-embedded tissue specimens of patients with failed uncemented and cemented total knee and hip prostheses. We applied double labelling of sections …