Woman Undergoes Partial Knee Replacement Surgery with Hi-Tech Procedure in Delhi

New Delhi, Sep 9: A 58-year-old woman suffering from osteoarthritis received a new lease of life after undergoing a partial knee replacement surgery at a private facility here which involved high-tech procedure that ensures faster rehabilitation, the hospital authorities said.

Joint replacement surgeries are done for patients who have prolonged, moderate to severe knee pain consistently which does not get better with physiotherapy and medication. The common cause of knee pain is related to aging, injury or repeated stress on the knee, the doctors said.

The woman, a Delhi resident, who had been suffering from several years of knee pain, underwent a "mobile partial knee replacement" surgery at Apollo hospital here recently.

Mobile partial knee replacement surgery, a high-tech procedure, is an alternative to traditional joint replacement surgeries that is characterised by bone preservation, minimal operative morbidity and faster rehabilitation, the hospital said in a statement.

Under the supervision of Dr Yash Gulati, Senior Consultant Orthopaedics, Joint Replacement & Spine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, said "A partial knee replacement was done, where only affected portion of the knee which is less than half of the knee, was operated and that too with minimally invasive technique."

"In India, age-related osteoarthritis of joints is extremely common. In the majority of patients in India, the medial or the inner part of the knee joint is much more affected than the other two parts of the knee. As a matter of fact, the other two parts of the knee are near normal. In about 40 per cent cases of advanced osteoarthritis joint replacement is required," he said.

"Instead of operating on the entire knee, the technique of partial knee replacement does the surgery on only the affected area and other areas are not touched," the doctor said.

"Patients are carefully chosen for this type of surgery and certain criteria must be met for conducting this surgery. About 30 percent of cases undergoing total knee replacement will actually do better with partial or half knee replacement. This procedure was first initiated in Oxford, the UK, years ago. With time it has caught the attention of surgeons all over the world," Gulati said.