Patient matched Instrumentation for Knee Replacement Surgery! A knee replacement surgery has become as common as a cataract surgery. In last 5 years a lot of technology has been used to perform the surgery with ease. The accuracy and mainly the final outcome for the patient have tremendously improved. 95% patients now go home within 4 days of surgery. Computer Assisted surgery was the biggest break through in this scenario. The need for computer assisted surgery was felt because the alignment of the transplanted knee is very important. A well aligned knee would last longer. However the Computer assisted systems lengthened the surgical time and had a steep learning curve. It added a lot of extra instruments for the surgeon and the hospitals had to buy the expensive computer systems for the same. There is now a breakthrough available which addresses all the short comings of computer assisted surgery at the same time gives the benefit of the “perfect alignment”. This innovation is called patient matched instrumentation. When I use this technology what I do is to get a MRI scan and an X-ray of the patient who is scheduled to undergo the surgery and send it to a centre in Belgium. An artificial model of the bones is created from this data. Based on these models a cutting block is generated for the patient. These blocks are meant to cut exactly the required bone to get the alignment right. These blocks are shipped in a sterile container. During the surgery a single customized block is used to cut the patients bone which saves the routine 6 blocks used before! The surgery thus lasts only for a short period. Since the surgical time is shortened the recovery is faster as there is less pain. The hospital gain because there are far less instruments s required. The surgeon ahs to dissect only a little and is assured of a good alignment without using the computer. So it is a win-win situation for everyone. The time taken for the blocks to arrive is around 4 to 6 weeks. The additional cost for the surgery is around 40,000 Rs. The computer aided surgery cost was 10,000 rs additional so roughly the cost goes up by 30,000 INR. And finally it is freely available in the city of Mumbai. The picture below shows how the blocks look.