Oxinium Knee Replacement

As today’s patients seek more active lifestyles than traditional patients, knee and hip implants will be expected to endure more stress without succumbing to wear. However, the functional lifetime demand of younger and active patients is 10-fold greater than the estimated functional lifetime of traditional polyethylene1. VERILAST™ Technology from Smith & Nephew is the only bearing technology with published results of 45 Million Cycles of hip and knee in-vitro wear simulation testing, R3™ Hip System and LEGION™ Primary Knee System, respectively. This means the replacement may be expected to provide improved wear performance. More importantly, if implanted earlier, it may restore patients to their active lifestyles sooner.

Smith & Nephew understands that lower nickel content offers benefits to your metal sensitive patients. Just as metal ions are a well described problem for many hip replacement patients, metal sensitivity to cobalt, chromium and nickel (common materials used in most joint replacement implants) are commonly cited allergens. In many cases, sensitivity to these allergens has resulted in revisions for knee replacement patients4-7.

VERILAST™ Technology incorporates proprietary OXINIUM™ alloy instead of the commonly used cobalt chromium alloy. OXINIUM alloy has <0.0035% nickel content, and <0.02% chromium content compared to up to 0.5% and 30.0% respectively in cobalt chrome. Moreover, oxidized zirconium is a nearly inert material that has not been reported to induce immune reactions.