Scientists have developed a new technique to counter the rapid rise in knee replacement surgery. The computerised analysis will improve the success of replacements and prevent costly and unnecessary “revisions” to existing implants, researchers say.
Modern knee replacement is a highly successful method of relieving the pain and disability of knee osteoarthritis. More than 90,000 are performed in the UK each year, a figure that is expected to rise by more than 600 per cent by 2030 due to an ageing population, obesity and younger people having surgery.
Patients often require a second knee replacement or revision, which can cost up to four times as much as the original surgery and bring increased risk of infection and failure.
Researchers at the University of Bath, reporting in the Journal of the Royal Society, have developed a semi-automated computer program to assess the condition of a knee replacement, a task usually performed visually by surgeons.
The technique gives an independent score for radiolucency, the region surrounding a hip or knee replacement that is dark on an x-ray and can progressively worsen.
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Richie Gill, professor of healthcare engineering at the university, said there was a “lack of agreement between different surgeons looking at the x-rays”. The computerised tool would help patients and “save money spent on operations which may not be successful”.