Smith+Nephew is a London-based medical technology group specializing in bone and tissue reconstruction, wound healing and joint replacement. At the site in Aarau, Switzerland, hip shaft prostheses are coated, among other things. An AI-supported software solution in combination with the ZEISS Axio Imager Z2m light microscope is used for quality inspection. The ZEISS solution delivers the results within a few minutes thanks to automated image segmentation.

More than 400,000 hip and knee prostheses are manufactured in Aarau each year. A large proportion of these are coated in five state-of-the-art vacuum chambers at temperatures of up to 20,000 degrees Celsius, either purely with titanium or with titanium and hydroxyapatite. The latter is a bone substitute substance that improves or stimulates the ingrowth of the bone follicles into the porous prosthetic surface.

The required thickness of the titanium and hydroxyapatite layer in a POLARSTEM for hip reconstruction is between 155 and 305 micrometer. Since the group, which operates in around 100 countries, has been coating implants in Aarau, the ZEISS Imager light microscope has been used to check the layer thickness. Since summer 2022, the medical technology company in Aarau, which employs around 15,000 people worldwide, has also been working with a ZEISS Axio Imager.Z2m.

Read the full story here.