The wear debris generated during artificial joint prosthesis service can react with bone tissue to form osteolysis, seriously affecting the life-time of artificial joint prostheses. This paper reviews, summarizes, and analyzes domestic and international research literature on the extraction, characterization, and identification of wear debris from different artificial joint materials, aiming to provide references and feasible ideas for the future construction of a systematic and hierarchical research system for artificial joint wear debris. The main findings of this paper are: 1) Strong alkali protein degradation test, strong acid protein degradation test, and protease protein degradation test are the commonly used methods for extracting artificial joint wear debris, and researchers have clarified the protein degradation mechanisms of these three debris extraction methods. 2) The characterization of wear debris in-vitro and in-vivo is mostly for hip and knee joints, with a small amount involving cervical spine and ankle joints. Studies have shown that the size, quantity, shape, and volume of wear particles are influenced by factors such as joint type, contact area, material selection, and implantation time. Both domestic and international studies have conducted characterization research on wear debris after in-vitro simulation testing, but there is still a lack of wear debris characterization analysis of clinical retrievals in China. 3) Currently, most research is on the recognition of wear debris in the traditional mechanical field, but there is little research on the intelligent recognition of artificial joint wear debris, indicating that there is a certain lag in the application of computer technology in the field of artificial joint wear debris recognition.