The femoral component of a hip prosthesis is traditionally anchored to the femoral bone with a stem introduced into the femoral canal and fixated with cement, or through bony ingrowth. Over the recent years, short femoral stems have been introduced, among other reasons to meet the increasing popularity of mini-invasive surgical procedures. The short stems are meant to be easier to introduce through a small incision like used in muscle conserving anterior and posterior approaches. Secondly, and biomechanically relevant, an important design related benefit of the short femoral stems is thought to prevent periprosthetic bone resorption. Bone remodels as a response to mechanical loading. When a stiff implant is inserted into the femoral canal, the load will "bypass" the proximal femur through the implant, and is transferred to bone distally. This results in a negative bone remodelling in the proximal femur, which leads to bone resorption, often termed as "stress shielding". Stress shielding is observed around most uncemented implants, and mainly occurs within the first 6 - 24 months postoperatively. The extent of implant coating, the material stiffness, design and the size of the stem are found to influence the degree of stress shielding. The short stems are thus designed based on the theory that proximal load transfer preserves metaphyseal bone.