A concern for surgeons performing hip replacement surgery is to finish the job with both of the patient’s legs the same length. The Canadian company Intellijoint Surgical, Inc. (formerly Avenir Medical) has received a Health Canada Medical Device License for its flagship product, Intellijoint HIP, that it claims is significantly more accurate in determining leg length and offset equivalency than traditional measurement methods used in hip replacement.
Getting the Leg Length Right – Easily!
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“Receiving Health Canada’s license to launch Intellijoint HIP in Canada, and our ongoing studies in Toronto Area Hospitals are exciting milestones, ” said Armen Bakirtzian, CEO of Intellijoint. He says that the company’s proprietary device enables surgeons to quantify the key measurements needed for accurate primary and revision hip replacement.
“In hip replacement, many surgeons rely on clinical judgment to position implants and determine leg length and offset, ” said Allan Gross, M.D., orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, and chairman of Intellijoint’s Scientific Advisory Board. “However, studies in the U.S. and EU show that after hip replacement over 30% of patients have complaints, one-third of these have complications due to surgical error and 7% are readmitted for high cost revision surgery.”
“At the same time, ” noted Gross, “research shows that accurate measurements in hip replacement improve patients’ clinical benefits, and lower hospital costs and liabilities. With Intellijoint HIP, surgeons now have a time and cost saving smart tool for the operating room that enables them to accurately perform hip replacement and enhance patient satisfaction.”
Bakirtzian said that Intellijoint has met the international requirements for its quality management system for the design and manufacture of medical devices and has submitted its application to the FDA for marketing Intellijoint HIP in the United States. Once approved, he added, the firm’s products can potentially be used by surgeons to guide over 500, 000 hip replacements a year.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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