96 patients with non-inflammatory arthritis, who were scheduled for a total shoulder arthroplasty, were randomized to receive a vacuum assist (weep-hole) technique for the implantation of the glenoid component or the traditional third generation methods. The surrogate of the adequacy of fixation being the area of bone cement measured by radiographs. It was found that the vacuum assist had a greater amount of bone cement than the conventional method by 14.8%, with the average area of cement under components keel and peg inserted with the standard techniques being 420 mm2 and 482 mm2 with vacuum technique.