Gender-Specific Artificial Knee Provides Truer Fit for Women

August 2006

By Lee Peterson
TORRANCE DAILY BREEZE

Yolanda Areu may have done the right thing by putting off her knee replacement surgery for so long.

The 67-year-old Los Angeles woman was in a car accident as a teenager, and in the late 1980s found out that as a result of that trauma, she was going to be a candidate one day for an artificial knee.

Finally, this year, she could wait no longer. But she lasted just long enough to receive one of a new generation of mechanical knees specifically designed for the female leg.

Her surgeon, Inglewood orthopedic surgeon Lawrence Dorr, said that traditional artificial knees have often been a less-than-ideal fit for women.

Surgeons have always had different sizes of replacement joints to work with, but the proportions -- height versus width -- had not been engineered for a typical woman's leg, and the part that attached to the bone would overhang a bit, which eventually could cause pain, post-surgery.

The new joint, the Gender Solutions high-flex knee made by Zimmer, fits like a glove, Dorr said. It also allows for the fact that women's hips are at a different angle than men's, he added.

"I really think this is one of the best design advancements in knee replacement in the last 25 years," Dorr said.

Areu, despite that youthful accident, led an active and athletic life as an adult. For example, she was an avid and sometimes aggressive skier, and never suffered any broken bones.

Still, the accident finally caught up with her in 2004, when she had her right hip replaced by Dorr at Centinela Hospital Medical Center, Centinela Campus, in Inglewood.

The hip surgery worked. Eventually though, the left knee was causing her more and more trouble. But Areu was told knee replacement leads to a more lengthy and painful recovery process. She was wary because she has to take complete care of her nearly-90-year-old aunt, and a long convalescence for Areu would complicate matters.

It was bad enough after Areu's hip surgery: She said she felt like she had a Frenchman -- don't ask -- clinging to her leg for five or six weeks. (OK if you must know, Areu is referring to a typical street act by French "cafe dancers" in which one will cling to another's leg and be hefted away, down the boulevard.)

Still, cafe dancers or no, her condition left her no choice.

"When I started to physically fall, I thought it was a good time to go back to Dr. Dorr," Areu said.

So in June, she became one of the first women to receive the new Gender Solutions knee.

She said she bounced back immediately. Contrary to what they told her, she was feeling good quickly. Recovery from hip-replacement surgery had been harder.

"With this surgery it gave me the ability to jump right back into my life," said Areu, who works as a kind of freelance financial paperwork troubleshooter for small companies.

Dorr said that about 80 percent of women who have knee-replacement surgery will be candidates for the Gender Solutions knee. The reason people need such surgery is typically because of the pain of arthritis, and typical wear and tear such as worn-out cartilage.