News Updates

  • New hip replacement technique offers faster recovery with less pain

    Source: Medical News Today

    A new hip replacement strategy, an anterior approach technique, allows the patient to experience less pain, have a quicker recovery, and improved mobility.

    The majority of hip replacement surgeries are done using other techniques because many hospitals do not yet offer the anterior approach. However, people are becoming increasingly aware of its benefits. Within the next 5 to 10 years, Dr. Rees believes that it will become the primary technique.

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  • Marco lecture proves robotic knee replacement surgery has leg up on traditional methods

    SourceMarco News.com

    Buechel, an orthopedic surgeon at Physicians Regional Healthcare System, is on the cutting edge of robotic joint replacement, having performed 439 robotic knee surgeries or about 5 percent of all such surgeries worldwide. He also teaches other doctors the technique.

    Errors occur with traditional partial knee replacements, Buechel said, because doctors are not as likely to place implants into the knee joint with complete accuracy. The robotic system pinpoints alignments to within one millimeter and one degree, he asserted.

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  • New company enters market to use vitamin E to extend life of hip, knee implants

    Source — Marco News.com

    Vitamin E isn’t an antioxidant just for your skin and nails anymore — it’s expanding to joint implants.

    Zimmer, a company also based in Warsaw, is seeking FDA approval to offer its own version.

    The concept is that the natural antioxidant in vitamin E can prevent wear of the polyethylene, or plastic, components of implants. Many cup liner components for hip implants are made of the plastic and the same goes for plastic knee bearings in knee replacements.

    The vitamin is blended in during the manufacturing process and makes the material denser to better handle stress, said Tim Gardener, product director for hip products with Zimmer.

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  • Can surgery help you stay in the game?

    SourceBoston.com

    Demand for knee and hip replacement rises–

    Arthritic knee crimping your tennis game? Toss it out and get a new one.

    Demand for joint replacement surgery, once confined largely to patients well past retirement age, has been growing rapidly among a class of people doctors have dubbed the “young actives’’ – those in the 45 to 64 age group who are determined to stay fit.

    Still, even with the rise of obesity and longer lives, public health researchers say the rate of joint replacement failures requiring revisions is about 1 percent a year, mostly in the relatively younger patients who “outlive’’ the 10-to-20-year working life spans of their replacement joints. And as technique and technology have improved, the rates of infection, dislocations, and other complications have declined.

    But she added a note of caution. “What we could expect to see in the future is the people in the 45-to-64-year-old category coming back to get revisions’’ – new knee replacements in second surgeries. With any luck, the second implants could be better.

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  • Untreated varicose veins put patients at greater DVT risk following THA

    SourceHealio

    As the search continues for methods to reduce deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism risk in patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty, researchers have found increased rates of deep vein thrombosis within 90 days of undergoing total hip arthroplasty among patients with untreated varicose veins.

    “Overall patients should consider having their varicose veins treated prior to undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA) in an attempt to reduce DVT [deep vein thrombosis],” Anahita Dua, MD, of Brookfield, Wisc., said at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2012 Annual Meeting, here.

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