Sports Medicine South
in Lawrenceville, Ga.
He's placed more than
200 of the custom-
made knees into his
patients.
"I hear people report
that probably 60% of
patients who get off-
the-shelf implants do
remarkably well," he
says. "But what about
the other 40%? With
custom, it's more like
95% who do extremely
well. Patients have
told me that the custom-made knee feels more like a natural knee.
Over time, they find they're not constantly saying, 'This is a replaced
knee.'"
For the past 4 years, Dr. Levengood has been obtaining customized
joints from a Massachusetts-based firm called ConforMIS. He sends a CT
scan of the knee, as well as imaging slices of the hip and ankle in order to
map the center of alignment. Computerized printers that are able to create
solid objects layer by layer use the CT imaging data to form a wax mold of
the knee joint, with which the company casts metal implants precisely the
shape and size of the patient's own anatomy. Along with the implants, the
company sends sterile, single-use, calibrated instrumentation designed
and 3D-printed specifically for use in each case.
In the curvature of its condyles, the knee is more anatomically com-
plex than the ball-and-socket hip joint. But recreating that unique
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 3
• A UNIQUE KNEE "Patients have told me that the custom-made knee feels more like a
natural knee," says Gary Levengood, MD.
Sports
Medicine
South
