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European Knee Associates unites key opinion leaders in treating the arthritic knee
The organization plans to establish best practices, standards of care and guidelines specific to European surgeons treating the arthritic knee.
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During a meeting in Lisbon in 2008, a group of European orthopaedic surgeons informally discussed the idea of a European-focused scientific organization focused on knee arthroplasty and treating the degenerative knee joint. In 2010, that organization officially emerged as the European Knee Associates.
Today, European Knee Associates (EKA) exists under the umbrella of the European Society of Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy (ESSKA).
“Unlike the American Knee Society, there was no equivalent structure in Europe, and considering the predicted growth of knee arthroplasty in Europe for the coming years, there was indeed a growing interest in that field,” Jean-Noel Argenson, MD, president and a founding member of EKA and member of the Orthopaedics Today Europe Editorial Board, said.
“The American Knee Society has done tremendous work in the field already and has, in fact, during the last decade become the world’s leading group of experts in that domain,” said Johan Bellemans, MD, PhD, EKA vice president and one of the organization’s founders. “But, we feel the Europeans have our own specific expertise, we have our own culture and ethnic backgrounds, and we have our own key opinion leaders and experts.”
In 2008, Bellemans was chair of the ESSKA Knee Committee, which essentially served as the basis for EKA.
Attendees at the first meeting of the European Knee Associates (EKA) were photographed when they met in Lisbon in 2008. The first EKA president, Ate Wymenga, MD, PhD, (back row, third from the right) is seen with other founders of the organization.
Image: Wymenga A
“The ESSKA board fully supported the concept and adapted new bylaws to make more independent active sections within ESSKA possible,” Argenson said.
Mission and purpose
The EKA’s mission “is excellence in the arthritic knee,” Ate Wymenga, MD, PhD, a founding member who was the first EKA president from 2010 to 2012, told Orthopaedics Today Europe. “We have chosen to have high-quality people who are opinion leaders, who are active scientifically in the field, and this group is happy to present their experience and research.”
EKA has three main purposes: to advance knowledge, provide education, and promote and maintain professional standards and science. To advance knowledge, EKA holds annual closed meetings, an open meeting every 2 years, and meets in alternating years during the ESSKA congress. The next closed meeting will be held in November in Oxford under the direction of Christopher A.F. Dodd, FRCS, of Oxford Clinic for Specialist Surgery, who is also an EKA founding member.
During closed meetings, members present their preliminary research.
“We present our work-in-progress and immediately get suggestions from our peers to improve and to think further,” Bellemans said.
Dodd said 70 members will convene at the next closed meeting for presentations and discussions, which will include a session about new technologies for medial osteoarthritic surgery, such as patient-specific implants and guides, robotic surgery and other techniques to improve surgical accuracy.
EKA’s first open meeting, held in Vienna in 2011, had 480 attendees. The next open meeting is scheduled for April 3-5, 2013, in Florence.
EKA member Gerard Deschamps, MD, presents options for implanting unicompartmental knee arthroplasty components at the European Society of Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy (ESSKA) Congress 2012 in Geneva. Every other year EKA holds combined sessions with ESSKA.
Image: Craven J, Orthopaedics Today Europe
“There is already strong enthusiasm for this meeting all over Europe ... with a predicted number of attendees reaching 700 people,” Argenson said.
Professional standards
EKA provides education through sponsored fellowships in the field of the degenerative arthritic knee and plans to introduce a traveling fellowship. EKA organizes focus groups and multicenter studies on difficult or “rare” issues and works to establish an exchange of knowledge with national and multinational orthopaedic organizations, such as the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, and hold sessions during those groups’ annual meetings.
“EKA will also organize combined meetings with international societies, like the International Congress for Joint Reconstruction, to favor exchange of knowledge outside Europe,” Argenson said.
The first combined meeting between European and American faculty will be held during the Insall Scott Kelly Institute Sports Medicine Total Knee and Hip Course, scheduled for Oct. 19–21, 2012, in New York City.
Established working groups within EKA are also expected to lead the development of guidelines and best care practice decisions. For example, concerning thromboembolic prophylaxis, EKA hopes to establish distinct guidelines from those endorsed by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the U.S. Hip and Knee Societies, Bellemans noted.
Expert members
EKA currently has 85 members and aims to eventually have around 100 members, Argenson said.
Bellemans said that they don’t feel the number of members is so important.
“We want to group the experts who are working in this domain in Europe, and to guarantee that ... we require our members to be almost exclusively dedicated to the degenerative knee and knee arthroplasty. We want them to be open in communication of their results and expertise, which means they should be able to demonstrate they have publicly reported in a peer-review format in five peer-reviewed English-language journals in the past 5 years,” he said.
Other EKA membership requirements include having performed 50 or more knee replacements per year for 3 years, having devoted 50% or more of clinical practice to degenerative knees, or having 30% of research related to degenerative knees or knee arthroplasty procedures. – by Tina DiMarcantonio
For more information:
Jean-Noel Argenson, MD, PhD, can be reached at Aix-Marseille University, the Institute for Locomotion, Hospital Sainte-Marguerite, 270, Boulevard Sainte-Marguerite, 13009, Marseille, France; email: jean-noel.argenson@ap-hm.fr.
Johan Bellemans, MD, PhD, can be reached at Knee Surgery and Sport Orthopaedics, University Hospital Leuven, Campus Pellenberg, Weligerveld 1, B-3212 Pellenberg, Belgium; email: johan.bellemans@uzleuven.be.
Christopher A.F. Dodd, FRCS, can be reached at Windmill Road, Headington Oxford, OXON 0X3 7HE United Kingdom; email: cafdodd@aol.com.
Ate Wymenga, MD, PhD, can be reached at Knee Reconstruction Unit, Sint Maartenskliniek, PO Box 9011, 6500 GM Nijmegen, The Netherlands; email: a.wymenga@maartenskliniek.nl.
Disclosures: Argenson, Bellemans, Dodd and Wymenga have no relevant financial disclosures.