OrthAlign Debuts KneeAlign in U.K.

OrthAlign Inc. has introduced its KneeAlign technology in the United Kingdom. The handheld precision alignment tool provides tibial and femoral navigation during surgery, and is designed to be compatible with any implant system.

“KneeAlign is fast, simple, and easy to use,” said Edwin P. Su, M.D. a hip and knee surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, N.Y., who presented OrthAlign’s total knee arthroplasty (TKA) technology at the London Knee Meeting on Oct. 7. “I believe OrthAlign’s handheld precision alignment technology helps bring all the good of navigation into the reach of many surgeons, providing precision and real-time data without the added complexity and exorbitant cost of computer assisted surgery systems or patient cutting blocks. It’s hard to imagine life in the operating room now, without it. I think surgeons here in the United Kingdom will have the same experience.”

A recent U.S. study published in The Journal of Arthroplasty by Denis Nam, M.D. of Washington University, St. Louis, Miss., showed that KneeAlign decreases the incidence of outliers for tibial component alignment in both the coronal and sagittal planes, and improves the surgeon’s ability to achieve a specific, intraoperative goal, compared to conventional, tibial extramedullary (EM) alignment guides in TKA. In the KneeAlign cohort, 95.7 percent of tibial components were within 2 degrees of perpendicular to the tibial mechanical axis and 95% of tibial components were within 2 degress of a 3 degree posterior slope (compared to 68.1 percent and 72.1 percent in the EM cohort, respectively). This study was conducted as a randomized control trial, consisting of five different surgeons.

“As we continue building on our international growth strategy, we believe the U.K. surgeon community is poised to embrace OrthAlign technology,” said James Young Kim, OrthAlign’s vice president of marketing. “More than 70,000 knee replacements are performed in England and Wales each year, and the number is growing at a rapid rate. Competition amongst implant companies proves to be increasingly fierce, but the U.K. orthopedic market confirms that the future for TKAs lies in technology that improves results, promotes consistency, reduces operating time, decreases patient hospital stays, and reduces patient pain. Ultimately, we hope that our technology helps raise the standard of care for TKAs in the United Kingdom.”

Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based OrthAlign makes precision alignment technology and products for total hip and knee arthroplasty procedures.