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November 15, 2013

Updates from the November F04 ASTM Meeting

The medical device task group of ASTM met in Jacksonville, FL from November 12-15th. The meeting starting with a workshop on modularity and tapers in total joint replacement devices, and discussed potential issues with femoral head fretting.

The cleanliness task group worked on two draft standards. The first, a guideline for validation of medical device cleanlines, is now ready for balloting. The second, preparation of test soils for cleanliness testing, is making good progress, and will be ready for balloting soon. The task group also discussed starting a new standard for measuring cleanliness levels of plastic implants.

The PEEK task group heard a presentation about material properties similarities and differences between different grades of PEEK, and further discussed how to replace the test method for heavy metals as lead with a more current assay.

The UHMWPE task group discussed the up-coming round robin study of small punch on UHMWPE (samples are being sent). Net ash on consolidated UHMWPE will be removed from ASTM F648, and new draft standards for electron spin resonance characterization and fatigue crack propagation are in consideration.

In the bone cement group, the preliminary results of a round robin study on the titration method for benzoyl peroxide quantification was presented and discussed.

For the May 2014 meeting, a workshop on Additives in Biomedical Plastics will be held. A soliciation will go out shortly, but all those interested in presenting can also contact Stephen Spiegelberg from Cambridge Polymer Group, who is one of the chairs.