Australia-based Osseointegration International has partnered with Italian manufacturer Permedica Orthopaedics to launch the Osseointegration procedure for amputees in Italy.
The team will focus on supporting surgeons and healthcare professionals throughout bringing the amputees to a “new normality”.
Direct Skeletal Fixation or Osseointegration is a surgical procedure that involves inserting a prosthetic implant into the residual bone of an amputee, to which an external prosthesis can attach directly.
This eliminates the need for a traditional socket-mounted prosthesis, resulting in enhanced mobility for amputees, a faster rehabilitation process, increased muscle use and control, a more natural gait with an increased range of motion, and improved quality of life.
This technique for amputees was proposed in the 90s by Professor Rickard Brånemark, who built on his father’s intuition and worked towards the first osseointegration procedure using a titanium fixture in a human.
The implant design was perfected a few years later by Professor Munjed Al-Muderis, a major figure in the field of osseointegration surgery.
Through his improvements, Professor Al Muderis enabled a single-stage procedure for this surgical technique, reducing the rehabilitation for patients undergoing Osseointegration from one year to three months. In addition, he is credited with taking a surgical technique that was considered experimental and making it routine.
Since the first implant, over 2,000 patients have had Direct Skeletal Fixation surgeries, and Osseointegration International has over 1,200 successful cases worldwide, making this procedure the most clinically validated.
Permedica Orthopaedics and Osseointegration International have a long-lasting partnership, as Permedica manufactures the components of the OPL – the medical device implanted in the amputee’s bone. In addition, the companies are constantly cooperating on the technological improvement of this prosthesis.
“We are incredibly pleased that leveraging our partnership with Permedica and their capillary presence in the Italian territory, we will be able to bring this innovative procedure to Italian amputees,” said Professor Munjed Al Muderis, founder of Osseointegration International.
“In the past, Italian patients who wanted to undergo Osseointegration had to fly to Sydney, but now they can confidently refer to an Italian crew that will follow them until the full completion of the rehabilitation.”
“For years, we have received inquiries from Italian amputees to make this life-changing procedure available in Italy,” said Federico Perego, owner of Permedica.”Thanks to our partnership with Osseointegration and the collaborations with Dr Tiziano Villa, we can finally make the OPL available for Italian patients.
In the first phase, we will concentrate all patients in a specialised centre close to our facility in Brianza – north of Milan – to guarantee the highest quality and support to the patients. The plan is to select limited and qualified structures well geographically spread in the Italian territory.
The Osseointegration procedure can be used in most upper and lower limb amputation cases and has shown overall cost savings.