Shoulder Replacement
A variety of biomaterials are used in surgical implants, including investment cast titanium, cobalt-chromium, and stainless steel. In shoulder replacements, the ball portion of the joint is often metal, while the stem attached to it can be metal or another nonmetallic biomaterial.
Heart Valve Replacements
Stethoscope
Some modern hospital stethoscopes feature a diecast zinc electronics housing for the resonator—the device at the end of the scope that is placed against the patient’s body to listen to internal sounds.
Our heart valves keep the blood fl owing through- out our body, and when one or more of the heart valves are affected by disease, medical inter- vention often is neces- sary. Prosthetic heart valve replacements are life-saving devices that restore optimal function of the heart’s pump- ing action. A variety of replacement heart valves are used, including the tilting-disk prosthesis, which utilizes a titanium investment cast housing and mounting mecha- nism holding a carbon disk that mimics the opening and closing of a heart valve.
Hip Replacement
Most hip stems today are made of titanium or cobalt-chromium, while the ball portions can be either cobalt-chromium or ceramic. Titanium’s non- reactive properties, coupled with its high strength and low weight, make it a good candidate for joint replacement material. Sometimes instead of a total hip replacement, patients undergo hip resurfacing, where the head of the thighbone is not removed but instead topped with a cast metal (typically
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