Major advancement in total wrist replacement:
New KinematX Total Wrist Arthroplasty from Extremity Medical
Extremity Medical, a global medical device company with expertise in innovative implants for upper and lower extremities, announced the first total wrist replacement has been performed at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The surgery was the first to use the KinematXTM Total Wrist device from Extremity Medical.
Nearly one in seven people in the U.S. suffers from wrist arthritis, one of the most common and debilitating conditions treated by hand surgeons. Current interventions, such as fusion, relieve pain at the expense of range of motion and quality of life. KinematX™ is the one and only midcarpal implant designed to emulate natural wrist range of motion in patients with wrist arthritis and other degenerative wrist conditions. It is a significant improvement over radial implants currently available in the U.S.
“KinematX™ is the only wrist replacement designed and engineered to mimic the motion of the human wrist for a durable and natural range of motion that allows normal activities,” said Matt Lyons, CEO of Extremity Medical. “The challenge of addressing mechanical properties of the wrist is something few medical device companies have tackled and – until now – none have mastered.”
“Traditional wrist replacements often constrain the wrist to move in one plane at a time, and this puts stress on surrounding joints,” said Scott Wolfe, MD, chief emeritus of the Hand and Upper Extremity Service, at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, who performed the first surgery with KinematX™ last week. “The increased loads on the implant bone interface often lead to prosthesis loosening and mechanical failure. In addition, traditional implants often make it difficult or impossible to return to some activities.”
The new KinematX™ Total Wrist Implant is similar in design to the KinematX Hemiarthroplasty (partial) Wrist Implant, a unique midcarpal-based implant system pioneered by Extremity Medical that has been available outside of the U.S. since 2011. Clinical data on the original partial wrist implant shows improved wrist range of motion, grip strength and patient-reported outcome scores.
The design of KinematX™ was based on a new research approach to developing, identifying, tracking and measuring the precise motions of the eight bones in the human wrist. The Kappa Delta Award-winning research was led by Dr. Wolfe and Joseph Crisco III, PhD, director of the Bioengineering Laboratory in the Department of Orthopaedics at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.
Extremity Medical, LLC, founded in 2008, is a privately-held medical engineering firm based in Parsippany, NJ, known for creating innovative medical devices for upper and lower extremity orthopaedic procedures such as fusion, fixation, and motion preservation that promote better outcomes, especially in compromised patients and challenging cases.
