Local surgeon among the first in the nation to perform patient-customized knee replacement surgery
Atlanta, GA (May 11, 2009) -- While choosing a high performance knee replacement is central to regaining your active life, there is a new, technologically advanced surgical procedure that may extend the life of knee implants.
VISIONAIRE Patient Match technology is a remarkable system that uses a patient's MRI and x-ray images to design and build surgical instruments customized for his or her unique knee anatomy.
While every person's knee joint has subtle differences in shape and contour, traditional surgical instruments used to place knee implants are limited in terms of the number of sizes available. In the past, an orthopaedic surgeon would often need to spend time during the procedure modifying a patient's particular unique knee anatomy in order to achieve the proper placement of the implant.
Using VISIONAIRE technology, Dr. Brooks of Pinnacle Orthopaedics in Austell, Georgia, is able to come to the operating room equipped with single-use instruments, engineered exclusively for that patient's knee by the leading innovator in orthopedic medicine-Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics.
Not only does the VISIONAIRE system eliminate multiple steps from the surgery, thus reducing time under anesthesia, but an implant placed with this computer-guided precision has a reduced risk of the kind of misalignment that can cause it to wear out before its time.
"This technology is truly groundbreaking," says Dr. Brooks. "I have even more confidence in the accurate placement of the implant while my patients benefit from a somewhat less invasive procedure. Because the technology delivers pre-sized and pre-aligned instruments, my time in the OR has decreased significantly. For patients, that means a potentially reduced risk of complications."
In addition to enhancing the procedure, patients also get to take home the unique plastic instruments their doctor used to perform the case.
VISIONAIRE is a trademark of Smith & Nephew, Inc. | 
