Global experts have converged to discuss just how dodgy implants find their way into patients, trying to end the plague of poorly designed orthopaedic devices.

The two-day workshop brought together leading researchers, clinicians and industry representatives from Austria, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and Australia, at the Flinders Medical Device Research Institute (MDRI) in Melbourne.

A key objective was to review current techniques for assessing joint implants, and to define priority areas for testing of new devices in the future.

“One of the biggest problems with orthopaedic devices is that even though they’re regulated, current tests are not sophisticated enough to screen out poor implant designs before they reach clinical trials,” Professor Mark Taylor, a co-host of the event and biomedical engineer said.

“Australia has a comprehensive joint replacement register that has been successfully used to identify implants with below standard performance and this has led to their withdrawal.

“However, greater emphasis needs to be placed on better evaluating new devices before clinical use to ensure that poor designs never reach the patient,” he said.

The Australian Orthopaedic Association’s National Joint Replacement Registry contains information on 800,000 hip and knee replacements in which were implanted up to 2013. 

Figures show that there were 38,500 hip replacement surgeries and 48,500 knee replacement surgeries recorded in 2012 at a cost of around $1 billion. This included approximately 8,000 surgeries to replace failed joint replacements

“The idea of the workshop is to bring together some of the best orthopaedic experts in the world to identify where we should be going, in terms of the way that implants should be tested, and what we need to do to get there,” Professor Taylor said.

The workshop has prompted the drafting of a white paper on the future development of assessment methods, their role in product registration and certification, and exploration of mechanisms to support staff/student exchanges.

With the number of joint replacements significantly rising worldwide, Professor Taylor said there is a need to minimise the failure rates.

“There are about one million hip and knee replacements around the world each year and even if we achieve less than five per cent failure at the 10-year mark, that still translates to 50,000 patients needing to go back to the operating table,” he said.

“Subsequent replacements cost thousands of dollars, they’re obviously painful and the outcome is not as good the second time round, so we need get it right the first time if at all possible.”