Radiological Monitoring Of The Major Joint Prostheses

Major joints prostheses (shoulder, hip and knee) have changed the lives of millions of people. As any assembly of moving parts, they require regular monitoring. Without symptoms, clinical examination and simple X-rays at regular intervals are sufficient. If problems arise, it is necessary to use cross-sectional imaging. For a long time, massive prosthetic metallic pieces have been a major obstacle for CT-scanner and MRI... However, recent technical advances in CT-scanner (dual-energy CT, virtual monochromatic spectral imaging, metal artifacts reduction algorithms...) are deeply changing the game. This is even truer with MRI, a long time seen as impossible because of crippling metallic artifacts. Effective metal artifact correction sequences of various types (SEMAC, MAVRIC...) are currently available which open the way to a new semiology. The purpose of this work is to take stock of these new technologies and the new prostheses examination protocols that result.