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Surgeon Will Perform Minimally Invasive Knee Surgery in Live Internet Broadcast Archived Version Now Available WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - In late April, while the world watched on the Internet, a patient whose knee had been seriously damaged by osteoarthritis underwent a newly-improved procedure designed to restore maximum range of motion with minimal discomfort and recovery time. Gary G. Poehling, M.D., chair of orthopaedic surgery at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, performed the procedure, which he has helped to develop over the past five years in conjunction with an international panel of surgeons. Known generically as "unicompartmental knee replacement," the surgery restores the contact points between the femur (thigh bone) and tibia (shin bone) on only one side of the knee where the surface of protective cartilage has been damaged by arthritis. The procedure requires an incision of only about three inches, compared with six to eight inches for total knee replacement. Precise measurements are taken that minimize bone loss in fitting both the femoral and tibial surfaces with synthetic replacements that are anatomically designed to create a natural movement. The surgery takes about one hour, and patients leave the hospital in a day or two. They are able to stand almost immediately and begin rehabilitation that will quickly return them to normal activity and painless use of their knee. Poehling said candidates for the unicompartmental knee are generally younger than those for total knee replacement. "Typically, there are two groups that we're trying to help. The first group is the older patient that we expect this prosthesis to last their lifetime. The second group is people who are middle age, who have only partial damage but have a great deal of pain and could benefit from this less invasive procedure. In this group this first procedure could be followed by a total knee later if the arthritic process in the rest of their knee continued to progress." |
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