Dr. Daniel Fish, a surgeon with Orthopaedic Specialists of Connecticut in Brookfield, and two other doctors with Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) are among a handful of surgeons in Connecticut repairing knees by using an injectable bone filler.
The technique is called Subchondroplasty and is used in place of knee replacement.
“The procedure is ideal for patients with knee pain and decreased joint function caused by small cracks or stress fractures,” Fish said in a news release from WCHN, which includes Danbury, New Milford and Norwalk hospitals. “We inject a calcium phosphate compound that seals the crack like caulking.”
Specifically, Fish uses an injectable, bone graft substitute material called AccuFill to fill voids or gaps in the skeletal system. It flows readily to fill bone defects, then crystallizes and sets to form a scaffold in the bone. The compound is then naturally replaced with new bone during the healing process, the release says. The FDA OK’d the material in 2010.
Fish and his colleagues, Drs. Matthew Rogell and Robert Daher, have offered the procedure for the past two years.
“Before Subchondroplasty, there were limited treatments options for this type of injury,” Fish said. “Often patients in significant pain were forced to undergo the more invasive total knee replacement. In most cases, the Subchondroplasty has been able to alleviate the pain and avoid a replacement.”
The minimally invasive surgery is a 30-minute outpatient procedure performed under a regional anesthesia where the patient is awake.
