Medical Device Daily National Editor

SAN FRANCISCO – This year’s meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS; Rosemont, Illinois) is awash with programs relating to gender differences.

One AAOS media briefing on Wednesday focused on protecting women’s musculoskeletal health, particularly in sports activities.

Panel moderator Kim Templeton, MD, associate professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center (Kansas City, Kansas), said the number of women athletes with orthopedic injuries reflects the number of women flooding into both amateur and professional sports.

“More and more women are getting into sports,” she said, citing the impact of Title IX, which, for example, has resulted in the number of women involved in collegiate sports growing from about 294,000 in 1972 to some 2.65 million in 1998-1999, a number that almost certainly is even higher today.

Laura Tosi, MD, one of the panel members, said the growth of women in sports “demands that more attention [be given] to women’s healthcare.” She said, for example, that there has been “a huge increase in ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] injuries among women.”

Letha Griffin, MD, of Peachtree Orthopaedics (Atlanta), said that such ACL injuries, like war injuries, can be “devastating.” She added that 85% of such injuries are of a non-contact nature, so the development of what she termed “ACL prevention strategies” is of great importance. However, she said that coaches – and even trainers – “are slow to adopt prevention strategies.”

With one in 100 high school female athletes suffering an ACL injury and one in 10 college women athletes doing so, it’s obviously a big, big problem.

“Young women should educate themselves about getting in a flex position, Griffin said, with “landing softly” a key part of that education. “We need to emphasize landing skills,” she said.

Naomi Shields, MD, of the University of Kansas-Wichita, said women athletes have “triple the number of foot and ankle injuries” as do men. “Athletic activity affects our ankles” she said, “including stress fractures and more tendon and ligament problems.”

Shields said women face “shoe fit challenges,” with far fewer choices of well-designed and well-fitting athletic shoes than is the case for men.

“We need both improved, proper athletic training and shoes designed to minimize injuries,” she said.

Jo Hannafin, MD, of Weill-Cornell Medical College (New York), discussed shoulder injuries in women athletes.

She called for educating the public, coaches and medical providers on the different needs of female athletes, and noted that gender “is routinely ignored in athletic shoulder injury research.

In other news from AAOS:

• Stryker Orthopaedics (Mahwah, New Jersey) launched the Triathlon PKR, a partial knee resurfacing system. The PKR joins Stryker’s Triathlon Knee System family, which the company refers to as “the industry’s fastest-growing total knee replacement system worldwide.”

Stryker also unveiled the Triathlon TS Revision System, which it said is designed “to provide Triathlon performance in a streamlined revision procedure.”

The company said the TS Revision System’s “evolutionary” design is based on the Triathlon Primary System and added that the TS Revision System “is designed to provide improved motion, better fit and the potential for greater implant longevity.”

Stryker said the TS system has “post preservation features, which aid in alleviating the stresses typically exerted on a stabilizing post in a revision setting.”

Stryker said Triathlon PKR is “the industry’s first partial knee resurfacing product that utilizes Stryker’s X3 advanced bearing technology, which has demonstrated up to a 96% decrease in wear in laboratory testing compared to competitive premium bearing surfaces in total knee replacements.”

• CoolSystems (Alameda, California), d/b/a Game Ready, released the next generation of Game Ready, its injury treatment system for musculoskeletal injuries and post-operative rehabilitation. The system offers a combination of form-fitting wraps, cold and intermittent compression, and adjustable pressure and temperature settings for a “simple, convenient and effective treatment.”

The system includes a number of contemporary design features to enhance the patient’s experience and ease-of-use during recovery. Like its predecessor, the system still leverages NASA spacesuit technology to simultaneously deliver intermittent compression and controllable cold therapy to help people recover from injuries or orthopedic surgery.

• Orthovita (Malvern, Pennsylvania) reported the launch of Vitoss bioactive foam as the newest addition to its bone graft substitute product line. The foam contains bioactive glass that induces natural calcium phosphate growth onto the surface of the implant. The foam has the ability to soak and hold its own volume in bone marrow aspirate while retaining these biological fluids in pliable and compression resistant forms.

• Osteotech (Eatontown, New Jersey) said that the FDA has cleared its 510(k) submission for its Plexur M biocomposite. Adapting the company’s Plexur technology, Plexur M is intended for use in filling bony voids or gaps of the skeletal system that are not intrinsic to the stability of the bony structure. During the healing process, Plexur M is remodeled and replaced by host bone. Plexur M is a flexible biomaterial composed of mineralized cortical fibers bound in a resorbable polymer. When heated, this biocomposite becomes moldable and pliable allowing a surgeon numerous options for use during surgery. During the cooling process, Plexur M hardens providing a versatile porous scaffold to assist in regeneration of damaged and diseased bones. Osteotech specializes in regenerative medicine.

• Smith & Nephew’s Orthopaedic Trauma & Clinical Therapies (Memphis, Tennessee) business reported the launch of the Caption disposable platelet concentration system. The Caption system is used by the surgical staff to concentrate the platelets from a sample of the patient’s blood. The company said that when the concentrated platelets are applied to the surgical site, they may help jump-start the natural healing response.