Toward standardization of methods of determination of fracture properties of acrylic bone cement and statistical analysis of test results

A succinct critical review of the literature on the fatigue, fatigue crack propagation, and fracture toughness (herein collectively termed "fracture properties") of acrylic bone cement is presented, whereby it is pointed out that a plethora of test conditions have been used. This situation precludes meaningful interstudy comparisons and mitigates against a definitive delineation of the effect of a named variable on a specified fracture property. A case for standardization of test conditions is thus made, culminating in the presentation of a recommended set of such conditions. In addition, it is shown that many literature parametric studies employed inappropriate statistical methods for performing pairwise comparisons, and all these studies have not addressed the issue of possible interactions between the parameters being investigated. A methodology for addressing these deficiencies is presented in the present report, and its use is illustrated with a set of notional fatigue test results.