Zimmer Holdings, Inc. (NYSE and SIX: ZMH), a global leader in musculoskeletal health, today introduced Persona The Personalized Knee System, at the 2013 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting. The Persona System ushers in a new era in total knee replacement, combining personalized implants with intelligent instrumentation to provide surgeons with a new level of intraoperative precision to customize the best fit for their patients.
More than 600,000 total knee replacements are performed each year in the United States. While total knee replacement is among the most clinically successful procedures in modern medicine, patient expectations are increasing, leaving some patients less than fully satisfied. Despite the success of total knee replacement, current knee systems lack the fidelity to precisely match the anatomy and biomechanics of the natural knee for a global patient population.
As the market leader and a pioneer in total knee replacement, Zimmer committed to engineer the highest fidelity knee system ever. Building upon the clinical legacy of Zimmer's NexGen® and Natural-Knee® systems, two of the world's most clinically-proven and widely used knee systems, Zimmer employed cutting-edge scientific tools to design Persona The Personalized Knee System, which aims to deliver unprecedented fit, natural feel, and normal function.
"The Persona System is the most comprehensive, anatomically accurate and highest fidelity knee replacement system ever designed," said Jeff McCaulley , President, Zimmer Global Reconstructive. "Zimmer scientists and engineers and their designing surgeon partners pushed the boundaries of implant design, drawing upon advanced morphology, physiology, kinesiology and material sciences to develop a truly revolutionary system that allows surgeons to provide each patient with a personalized fit."
A number of breakthrough technologies went into the design of Persona The Personalized Knee System:
- Zimmer's Bone Resection Atlas (ZiBRA) is an advanced bone atlas with virtual resection and component placement capabilities. This tool allowed the Persona System's surgeon designers and engineers to study the morphology of hundreds of bones, representing a diverse global population, to precisely define anatomically accurate implant shapes and sizes.
- Zimmer's Virtual Biomechanical Knee (VBK) is a kinematic computational analysis program that allows rapid testing of hundreds of different design options to virtually assess their impact on soft tissues, motion and overall performance to optimize designs that more closely replicate natural feel and normal function.
- Zimmer's Robotic Simulator uses a six-axis, high-precision robot to replicate the kinematic patterns and biomechanical forces for a range of patient daily activities, validating the fidelity, precision and robustness of the implant designs.
Building upon this revolutionary design, the Persona System incorporates Zimmer's most advanced material technologies. Vivacit-E® advanced bearing surface material, incorporating Vitamin E, offers improved strength, ultra-low wear and exceptional oxidative stability for long-term performance. Trabecular MetalTM Technology porous metal is available on every compartment of the new knee system, facilitating biologic fixation of the knee replacement.
Complementing the most personalized and precise knee implant system, Zimmer is introducing a range of intelligent instrumentation to perform more precise and efficient procedures.