Increased oxidative protection by high active vitamin E content and partial radiation crosslinking of UHMWPE

Vitamin E stabilization successfully improved long‐term oxidation resistance of wear‐resistant ultra‐high‐molecular‐weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) used for joint implants. Stabilization can be achieved by blending an antioxidant into the UHMWPE resin powder before consolidation and irradiation. Balancing the wear resistance and vitamin E content in the blend is the current challenge with this approach, because vitamin E hinders crosslinking of UHMWPE during irradiation, which decreases wear resistance. The vitamin E concentration in the blend is generally limited to less than 0.3 wt%. Wear‐ and oxidation‐resistant UHMWPE has been obtained previously by consolidating blends of pre‐irradiated UHMWPE powders (XPE) into an unmodified polyethylene matrix (PE), where the improvement in wear rate depended on the radiation dose and fraction of XPE. We hypothesized that increasing the vitamin E content in the unirradiated matrix would not compromise wear and would further improve the oxidative stability of XPE/PE blends. Pin‐on‐disk wear testing showed that the XPE/PE blends containing 0.1–1.0 wt% vitamin E in the matrix had comparable wear rates. We used an aggressive accelerated aging test in the presence of the pro‐oxidant squalene and oxidation induction time (OIT) test and found that higher amounts of vitamin E resulted in stronger oxidation resistance for XPE/PE blends. The mechanical strength and toughness of the blends were not affected by changing the vitamin E content in the matrix. Stabilizing UHMWPE with higher vitamin E content may extend the service life of UHMWPE implants. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 36:1860–1867, 2018.