Artificial ankle joints give hope to arthritis sufferers
New artificial joints hold promise for ankle arthritis, according to experts speaking at
the recent annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society in Orlando, FL.
Promise aside, new prosthetic devices for total ankle replacement remain an experimental procedure, and caution is advised, says symposium moderator Lowell Gill, MD, with the Miller Orthopaedic Clinic in Charlotte, NC. "Twenty years ago, total ankle prostheses met with a high failure rate due to loosening, subsidence, or sinking of the device into the bone, and wound complications," he notes. "Because of these high failure rates of the past, total ankle replacement remains an experimental procedure. However, reports on the newer prostheses to date are encouraging."
The length of time for follow-up reports on the newer devices remains short-term to midterm with no long-term studies reported yet, says Gill. "The short- and midterm follow-up studies on total ankle replacement 20 years ago also were encouraging, but these devices ultimately failed," he cautions. "In the short term, total ankle replacement does appear to provide pain relief and reasonable function."
Ankle joint prostheses have marked design limitations because of the small size of the talus bone in the ankle, he notes. "Soft tissue complications such as wound healing problems remain a difficult challenge since this area of the body is less forgiving than in more proximal joints like the hip or knee."
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