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Robotics, input from manufacturers among highlights of THE Partial Knee Meeting
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THE Partial Knee Meeting, which was held 17 to 18 March 2016, in Knokke, Belgium, provided attendees with information about reconstruction options for patients with a degenerative knee, exclusive of total knee arthroplasty. Emmanuel Thienpont, MD, MBA, of the University Hospital Saint Luc, in Brussels, was the congress chairman. The meeting’s honorary chairmen were Norberto Confalonieri, MD, and Sergio Romagnoli, MD, who are both from Milan.
Orthopaedics Today Europe asked Thienpont, who is a member of the Orthopaedics Today Europe Editorial Board, about the highlights of the meeting.
Orthopaedics Today Europe: What is THE Partial Knee Meeting about?
Emmanuel Thienpont, MD, MBA: This meeting is all about partial knee replacement and using all possible combinations of small implants. The first meeting in this regard took place in 2012 in Milan and was chaired by Profs. Confalonieri and Romagnoli. I chaired the second meeting, which was held in Brussels in 2014, and because of its great success it was decided to create a new format for what has proven to be a unique meeting.
Emmanuel Thienpont
The name was changed to THE Partial Knee Meeting, which reflects our goal to make this the key worldwide reference meeting about partial knee replacement. Attendees from around the world attended this year’s meeting. They were from Europe, the United States, South Africa, Iran, Russia, Thailand and Chile. In all, 22 countries were represented.
Orthopaedics Today Europe: Why do you refer to this as the reference meeting on the topic of partial knee treatment?
Thienpont: First, every aspect of unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) was covered from the indications to specific technical aspects of medial, lateral and patellofemoral (PF) replacement. However, combination, bicompartmental (UKA combined with PF joint replacement) and bi-unicompartmental procedures were also discussed. The program also included discussions focused on the complications of UKA and how to perform a revision.
Second, and most importantly, the faculty made it the reference meeting on this topic. Key surgeons from around the world who specialize in UKA honored us once again with their participation in the meeting.
Orthopaedics Today Europe: What was a key feature of the program?
Thienpont: I found the program terrific this year with all key opinion leaders delivering excellent and challenging talks. The quality level of the content was high and at the end of each session, I felt I had learned something new that would change my practice. Two noteworthy sessions typical of THE Partial Knee Meeting were highly appreciated by the audience. The first of those was the “Ask the CEO” session. The European leadership of all major orthopaedic companies attended and answered questions concerning their opinions on the future of UKA. The second session was “Ask the Engineer,” where attendees challenged engineers at those same companies to discuss the technical aspects of their companies’ implants. They helped the surgeons recognize and appreciate the differences among the UKA products available.
Orthopaedics Today Europe: Was there any new trend in UKA you learned about at the meeting that you care to discuss?
Thienpont: There is a strongly renewed interest in UKA, which I found to be refreshing news. Some of that may be fueled by the current rate of about 20% of patients who are unsatisfied after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and the need — or pressure — to shorten hospital stays, possibly moving to 1-day surgery. UKA is a potential solution for both of these problems. However, registers show the failure rate of UKA is higher than that of TKA because the surgical procedure is less forgiving. Two major orthopaedic companies proposed at the meeting to help surgeons learn to use their new robotic systems, which helps them with alignment and component positioning in UKA surgery. This should be appealing to the newer UKA surgeon, however, I noticed experienced surgeons were also interested in the robotic systems available. The skilled surgeons said they would use the robotics more as an aid in the analysis of knee kinematics and soft tissue balancing than purely for alignment applications.
Orthopaedics Today Europe: Please describe the meeting’s innovative abstract book.
Thienpont: For this year’s meeting, we developed a new and unique concept. We asked seven questions to several key opinion leaders from around the world, including our faculty, their opinions of the present status of UKA and its future. We noticed from the resulting document that UKA usage varied from 5% to 70% among the invited authors. They noted they still consider published failure rates and a lack of training on UKA during residency as the main factors that limit more widespread use of UKA.
We learned that UKA wear is no longer considered a problem; however, instability, overcorrection and aseptic loosening of the tibial tray are still problematic. Many of the individuals we polled believe robotics could be the future, however most of the authors still believe training and education are the most important keys to success. We can only agree with these opinions. Therefore, we are already planning the next edition of THE Partial Knee Meeting. News of that meeting will be announced at the meeting website once available.
- Reference:
- www.partialkneemeeting.com
- For more information:
- Emmanuel Thienpont, MD, MBA, can be reached at University Hospital Saint Luc, Avenue Hippocrate, 10 B-1200, Brussels, Belgium; email: emmanuel.thienpont@uclouvain.be.
Disclosure: Thienpont reports no relevant financial disclosures. He is the chairman of THE Partial Knee Meeting.