ABSTRACT
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Orthopaedic Biomechanics and Biomaterials Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts, U.S.A.
The unraveling of the phenomenon of periprosthetic osteolysis is one of the most remarkable medical detective stories of the last 40 years. Special features of the development of understanding this unprecedented condition with its worldwide importance stem from the fact that it is an entirely new disease. No such disease has been recorded previously in the annals of medicine. It is, moreover, a man-made disease. It is a disease only of the secondhalf of the 20th century and beyond.
