DESSOS

Across the EU there are approximately 540,000 knee replacement operations per year. 5-10% of these will require re-operation after 10 years. A significant proportion of implanted knees have abnormal kinematics and this may accelerate the failure process. Variability in patient outcome is highly dependent upon the experience and skill of the individual surgeon, and there are at present no knowledge-based systems available to assist during the planning of an operation that take patient-specific data into account.

The main objective of DESSOS is to develop both knowledge, and the software tools that encapsulate that knowledge, in order to provide orthopaedic surgeons with appropriate information to make informed choices related to implant orientation and placement.

Specifically, DESSOS aims to:

• Develop rapid methods for generating patient-specific models of the lower limb.
• Develop rapid musculo-skeletal models capable of predicting forces for everyday activities.
• Develop rapid numerical models capable of predicting the kinematics and stresses experienced by the knee replacement.
• Determine the likely envelope of performance for a particular patient.
• Develop optimisation strategies to identify the implant orientation which would maximise the longevity of the device.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.dessos.org

Project co-ordinator:
University of Southampton

Partners:

• University of Southampton (UK)
• Charité, University Medicine Berlin (DE)
• Leiden University Medical Centre (NL)
• University of Zaragoza (ES)
• ESI (FR)
• Finsbury Orthopeadics (UK)
• PERA (UK)
• DePuy International (UK)
• Zuse Institute Berlin (DE)

Timetable: from 01/06 – to 12/08

Total cost: € 4.617.143

EC funding: € 3.981.216

Instrument: STREP

Project Identifier: IST-2004-27252

Source: FP6 eHealth Portfolio of Projects