Bangalore, July 28, 2010: Fortis Hospitals conducts Asia's first Custom Fit Knee Replacement Surgery in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore). 56 and 59-year-old women suffering from degenerative disease of the knee brought to Fortis Hospitals with complications, underwent Asia's first Custom Fit Knee Replacement Surgery. Patients were discharged within five days of the knee replacement operation. Patients started walking normally within a fortnight, unlike the usual 6-8 weeks required before resuming normal activities in the conventional surgery.

Lead orthopedic surgeon Dr. Sanjay Pai and his team at Fortis Hospitals Bangalore performed this revolutionary surgery by literally remodeling the anatomy of the patient's knee and recreating or customizing a knee with the right kind of technology and expertise. The new custom fit knee replacement technology designs a perfect instrumentation system that matches the patient's knee and ensures lesser pain, less tissue damage and faster mobilization.

According to Dr. Pai, "The two operations for knee replacement have been performed for the first time in Asia using the custom fit knee replacement technology. This is indeed a medical breakthrough and likely to revolutionize the way knee replacement surgeries are performed in India. We are glad to be the first adopters of this technology."

Why Custom-Fit Knee

While conventional knee replacement surgeries retro-fit predetermined sizes of prosthetics on to the patients' knee, this procedure is very different because it works on the principle that no two patients' knees are similar. With this technology the patient's knee is digitally recreated with 3D image mapping after taking into account the bone structure, weight ratios, gender, age and even mechanical alignment. Based on this 3D model the customized knee is created. Something, that just fits them right.

This technology ensures far greater accuracy and reduces the operation time by almost 40% and also results in less loss of bone & tissues.

How Custom Fit Knee Works

In short there are 4 steps to building and fitting a Custom-Fit Knee:

Step 1: Understanding your knee: The process starts with a CT Scan of the whole leg from the hips to the ankle which is then used to create an advanced 3D image of the leg structure. The age, weight and gender are also taken into account, creating a complete patient imaging.

Step 2: Processing and planning: With the 3D plan of the leg structure in place, an anatomical model is created to determine the mechanical alignment - the basic philosophy on which the entire process rests. Virtual instrumentation is then done and the surgery is planned accordingly.

Step 3: Recreating the knee: Once the surgery is approved, the Custom Fit instruments are manufactured at state-of-the-art dedicated manufacturing centers. Even the individual patient name and data are etched on each unit to confirm identification during the surgery

Step 4: Fitting the knee: With the Custom Fit instrumentation in place, the knee bone is chiseled to perfection so that the prosthetics fit exactly without any requirement for later corrective surgeries. After a 60 minute surgery, the patient ill have the knee that fits you perfectly.

Benefits of Custom Fit Knee Replacement Surgery

• Smaller incision
• Less soft tissue damage
• Lesser pain
• Early and better mobilization
• Better and pain free range of motion
• Improves alignment and sizing by using computer generated images of the patients anatomy to determine bone cuts and implant positioning preoperatively
• Better life span of the processes because of the accurate fit and alignment

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