New marker system leads to better implants

Hip-replacement surgery is a complex and exacting process. Currently, in order to ensure that patients receive the correct design and size of implant, orthopaedic surgeons perform a digital templating process that uses a single radiological scale marker to calibrate a radiograph.

The deployment of these single-scale markers, however, can be invasive and uncomfortable. Worse, the results obtained from them can be highly variable. That’s because a single marker – which often comprises a sphere mounted on a flexible arm – must be precisely positioned in the coronal plane of the hips and hence requires special expertise and time to apply correctly.

Now, a simple piece of equipment called KingMark, developed by Warwick University and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) orthopaedic surgeon Richard King, in collaboration with Prof Damian Griffin at the university’s Warwick Medical School, is bringing a new level of accuracy and ease of use to the templating procedure.