News Information

SCHNECK AMONG FIRST IN THE NATION TO PERFORM PATIENT-CUSTOMIZED KNEE REPLACEMENT SURGERY
June 18, 2010

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 one-size-fits-all. In the past, an orthopedic surgeon would spend time during the procedure adapting to a knee’s “terrain” in order to achieve the proper placement of the implant.

Using VISIONAIRE technology, the surgeon comes 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. Kristopher Williams, Seymour Orthopedics. “I have more confidence in the accurate placement of the implant while my patients benefit from a simplified procedure. Because the technology delivers pre-sized and pre-aligned instruments, my time in the operating room has decreased significantly. For patients, that means a potentially reduced risk of complications like infection.”

In addition to enhancing the procedure, patients also get to take home the unique plastic instruments their doctor used to perform the case.

For more information about VISIONAIRE Patient Match technology, contact Pam Kershner, Director of Surgical Services at Schneck Medical Center, at 812-522-0429, or Dr. Kristopher Williams, Seymour Orthopedics, at 812-524-3311.