A team of surgeons and engineers from Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, the School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Southampton and the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge recently won the Best Surgical Technology award in Bone and Joint Category of the Medical Futures Innovation Awards 2007.
Theirs was selected from over one hundred entries and described the development and testing of a new technique to improve the compaction of bone graft in revision total hip replacement. The use of vibration to compact bone graft (crushed bone) around the prosthesis leads to smaller hoop stresses in the femur improving the success of the revision hip replacement operations. It also gives the surgeons better control on how much compaction is required to achieve good results without the risk of fracturing the femur.
Doug Dunlop and Ben Bolland from Southampton General Hospital provided the clinical input and Andrew New of the School of Engineering Sciences and Gopal Madabhushi of the Geotechnical and Environmental Research Group here at the Department provided the engineering know-how. The team were awarded the prize at a gala awards ceremony hosted by Joanna Lumley and Rory Bremner at the Honourable Artillery Company in London. The paper on this work has also appeared in the May issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.