Despite the proven use of PMMA as so-called bone cement for the fixation of knee and hip arthroplasties, bone-damaging and painful implant loosening sometimes occurs, making revision surgery necessary. This requires the implant to be released from its bond with the PMMA. The conventional method is to mechanically destroy the bond by chiseling, which involves the risk of damaging the surrounding bone tissue.

As an alternative approach, a transcutaneous induction heating of the metallic implant as a perioperative procedure to debond the implant from PMMA is researched. The debonding is to be realized by heating and thus softening the PMMA above its glass transition temperature. This should enable the implant to be removed with reduced extraction forces, which means that chiseling out the implant is no longer necessary.

For this purpose, a validated numerical in silico model for the inductive heating of hip and knee arthroplasties is established. This model is used to simulate the electromagnetic and thermal interactions of the inductors used with implants made of commonly used medical alloys, PMMA, and surrounding hard and soft tissues. Based on this model, the inductor geometry will be adapted to achieve a homogeneous temperature distribution on the surface of the implants while negative thermal effects on periprosthetic tissues will be minimized as far as possible.