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Comment by Iwan-Zotow | Hacker News Reader

It means it would be worthwhile to harvest artificial knees from dead bodies

I'm not so sure about that. I would expect that the actual hardware represents only a small portion of the total cost of getting a knee replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost savings of going with used hardware doesn't really justify the shorter expected lifespan of the prosthesis.

Also, the wide variation in the price of a knee replacement, even within a single market, suggests that using used hardware is probably not the low-hanging fruit when it comes to reducing the cost. e.g., https://www.bcbs.com/news/press-releases/blue-cross-blue-shi...

The big thing to add to the cost of having a human-sourced knee is being on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of your life, which is a significant health risk (but significantly less than, say, not having a functional critical organ). There are processes to clean some transplants, but I'm not certain they work on anything other than the simplest of structures (e.g. pig heart valves)

Corneas are the exception: they don't provoke an immune response.

How many more miles can you get out of a used knee? 5 years? 10 years?

I wouldn't see this being viable unless it would last the full 25. Titanium hips, on the other hand, sign me up for a used one.

And how many miles you get from harvested heart? 5 years? Maybe 10? Average, I think, is 6 years.

I mean this could be calculated with relative easy whether it is worth harvesting or not, but I see no difference between harvesting natural organs vs harvesting artificial parts

If I had to guess I'd lean to thinking manufacturing an artificial muscle like the hearth is is a lot more challenging that an artificial joint like the knee is. Also from what I've seen people who get knee replacements tend to be people with a lot of years left to live to want to ski and run on them, whereas someone who needs a hearth transplant is probably nearing the end of their lifespan.

We alrady harvest (non-artificial) organs from dead bodies - if the person signed an organ donor card.

So, yeah, we could possibly harvest these as well. Although it's not clear that the cost-benefit is worth it in putting in a "used" knee replacement.

Yep, anything permitted and worth harvesting shall be harvested

What would the advantage be over manufacturing new ones? The risk of infection would make it a no go, I’d think. We wouldn’t use donor organs if we could make new ones. Also I thought they had to be customised to some extent.

Artificial knees should be sterile when they're first implanted, so if you use the same sterilization procedure, the infection risk should be the same, regardless of whether it's a used part or a new one.

You can sterilize them, but you still risk contamination during surgery. Presumably, a smoother surface from a new device is a slightly lower risk.

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