Developments in Knee Distraction

Osteoarthritis is a common disease in which patients experience joint pain and functional limitations. In knee osteoarthritis, the bone and cartilage are often damaged. Serious damage at older age is often treated with knee arthroplasty. For younger patients (<65 year), treatment options are very limited. Knee distraction is a new surgical technique that has achieved good treatment effects for these younger patients in previous clinical studies. However, no dedicated medical device was available for additional research and implementation of knee distraction in clinical practice. This research describes the development of, and the first investigations with, a knee distractor as a new medical device specifically intended to apply knee distraction. The characteristics required for a knee distractor to make its use clinically effective have been investigated. We also looked at how these properties could be translated into a product that is clinically applicable and makes it easier for the patient and the surgeon to make knee distraction part of standard care. The steps taken to get from concept to a pre-clinical prototype and ultimately to a medical device are part of the thesis. The developed dedicated knee distractor has been applied in a first clinical study of which the results have led to a broader clinical evaluation that may enable the eventual implementation of this surgical technique as a treatment for knee osteoarthritis in clinical practice.