Milestone of India - Asia records First custom-fit Knee Surgery. (Karnataka - India.)

BANGALORE: Asia's first custom-fit knee replacement surgery was performed at Fortis Hospital in Bangalore.

Recently, two patients with a degenerative disease of the knee were treated with custom-fit replacement surgery. The new technology ensures less pain and tissue damage and faster mobilization.

Fortis hospitals, CEO, Vishal Bali said on Wednesday: "The custom-fit knee replacement surgery is currently done only in US and Australia. Now, India is the first country in Asia to perform this surgery."

"Progress in modern science and advance in technology has improved patient care with short hospital stay and early recovery," added Bali.

With the increase in population and life span in India, by the next decade 20% of the population will be over 65 years and arthritis will be the leading ailment.

"In the USA, 5 lakh knee replacement surgery are performed annually. In India, we perform around 45,000 knee replacement surgery every year and its increasing by 25% each year," said, Dr Srinivas J V, orthopedic surgeon.

Orthopedic surgeon, Sanjay Pai, said: "It's a labour-intensive technology and reduces the surgery time by 20 minutes. The main advantage is it improves alignment and sizing by using computer-generated images of the patient anatomy to determine bone cuts and implant positioning preoperatively."

Case study:

* After suffering for more than a decade with knee pain, 56-year-old Sujatha Venkatesh, said she is relieved after the surgery. Just two weeks after undergoing a complex knee replacement surgery, Sujatha is back to her routine life. "I am feeling better. It's been just two weeks and I am back on my feet," said, Sujatha.

* Similarly, 59-year-old Rukmini Thimmaiah who was suffering from a knee problem for the past seven years and was almost bedridden in the last two years also expressed her relief from pain after the surgery.

However, the custom-knee replacement surgery is more expensive than conventional surgeries. "The regular surgery cost around Rs 1 lakh, this advance technology increases the treatment cost by Rs 30,000 more," said Dr Sanjay Pai.