The past few years have seen advances in veterinary orthopedics that are truly starting to bridge the gap between human and veterinary medicine.
With the help of the Internet and other sources, most pet owners are now learning about state of the art implants and new methods of orthopedic surgeries which are now starting to become commonplace.
And joint replacement surgery is one of those areas that have made huge gains in technology.
In fact, one of the most interesting advances in canine surgery is the development of cementless short stem total hip replacement.
More owners are now opting to have total hip replacement surgery done on their dogs . – and this demand has stirred some of the most progressive human based manufacturers to get more involved.
This trend has also given efforts to making implants last longer by using more progressive materials to maximize the implant/tissue interface. This also approaches the principals of minimizing the trauma to the patient, and reducing the amount of bone resection needed to implant a new prosthetic hip joint.
“It’s truly amazing the advances that have been made in canine hip replacement,” said Rick Sanchez, General Manager of Medicatech VET, a wholesale distributor of veterinary orthopedic products based in Irvine, Calif.
“Hip Resurfacing”
The term “hip resurfacing” hit the market in the late 90s, and it was only a matter of time before we saw the benefits as they applied to the veterinary market.
Hip resurfacing surgery has been a huge step in human orthopedics, as many human patients now outlive their hip implants, thus requiring several hip replacements over their lifetime. There are several versions of hip resurfacing available to human orthopedic surgeons, but in order for this type of implant to be used in a veterinary application, it would need to hold up under extremes not common to the human range of implants.
In 2005, a young veterinary resident surgeon in Hanover, Germany, Dr. Franziska Huhn, decided to test the bio-mechanics of the new wave of “short stem” femoral head resurfacing prosthesis called “Spiron “against clinically proven longer stem prosthesis called the Zweimuller prosthesis.
Both designs were made specifically for human implantation only. And since both implants were much too big for a veterinary application, both the Spiron and the Zweimuller implants were sized to fit a canine femur.
This was done so that the appropriate biomechanical testing could be performed. The results revealed that Spiron had a much higher initial stability and performed better under the rigorous repetitive load cycle than the traditional long stem prosthesis. And not only that, but it also showed to be almost twice as strong under terminal load to failure testing.
These facts made news throughout Germany, prompting a local veterinary surgeon, Dr. Volker Hach, to ask the manufacturers of Spiron to make it available for use in his patients that needed total hip replacement. The manufacturers, however, noticed the geometry of the canine hip differed greatly compared to the human hip. So a special version was developed just for dogs ,called Helica.
Dr. Hach then began to develop a surgical technique to implant the new short stem Helica femoral prosthesis. In 2009, he published his clinical data in VCOT, one of the world’s leading veterinary surgical publications. Since this publication, surgeons worldwide have opted to use Helica in place of the long stem prosthesis.
But like all joint replacement surgery, there are complications.
The Helica system was made to eliminate the common issues that contribute to the failed surgery, and one of the most apparent is implant subsidence and subsequent traumatic femoral fracture.
This is one of the most devastating complications of canine total hip replacement, and one which the Helica system has all but completely eliminated.
The other is the ability to prevent non-traumatic hip dislocation or luxation. The design of the Helica hip has dramatically reduced this issue as well. Many other benefits exist, as well.
“We’ve seen such a great demand for Helica because of its revolutionary design,” added Sanchez, who’s Medicatech Vet distributes the product in the United States. “It’s a wonderful development giving dogs a longer, more comfortable life, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer it.”