Although companies and surgeons agree that no two patients are alike, one company that has been putting this notion into action continues to evolve its products to give patients more options. ConforMIS Inc.’s (Burlington, MA) knee implants have only been around for a few years, but its constant evolution of existing technology is what keeps the company on top of its game.

Customized implants, especially for the knee, are the way of the future, according to Robert Snyder, MD. Snyder is a surgeon who not only implants ConforMIS devices into patients, but also has a ConforMIS implant of his own in his knee. “Hips are pretty much the same—everyone has a hip socket, a round ball and a round socket,” he says. “With knees, there aren’t any two people who have the same geometry. Everyone has different contours on their knee. The concept of taking off the shelf things and making them fit your knee is the old way.”

The ConforMIS iUni G2 knee implant is designed to preserve bone.

Snyder practices in Virginia and has been implanting the devices since the beginning of the year. His average patient age for the procedure is between 40 and 60 years old. Many of them have had arthroscopic surgery on their knees and were told that they had no options other than to have a knee replacement.

One of the main advantages to the custom implants is their perfect fit. “You’re not going to be off a few degrees like you would be a on a saw cut. The reason why a lot of knee replacements don’t do well is that the saw cuts are off a few degrees and the angles aren’t quite right.” The turnaround time for the custom implants is about two months.

ConforMIS is currently pushing its iUni G2 product (the second generation of its unicompartmental resurfacing device), which was introduced at the end of last year, it has a couple of other product launches planned for this year. So far, more than 1200 iUni devices have been implanted around the world. According to Kristin Neff, vice president of the clinical affairs group at ConforMIS, one of the company’s goals is to have the iDuo G2 (second generation of the bicompartmental resurfacing device) available by midyear. It also plans on releasing the iTotal product, on a limited basis, by the end of 2010.

The iTotal is a complete knee-resurfacing device that uses the same technology as the company’s unicompartmental and bicompartmental resurfacing devices. By requiring less cutting, it preserves more bone to give patients more future options for revision, if necessary.

As with any new technology, there can be challenges with adoption. ConforMIS makes the argument that they are not replacing the products that surgeons use, but rather are adding to their toolkit to better serve certain patient populations. The company also engages in medical education programs, uses surgeons to introduce the technology to other surgeons, and has cadaver lab sites across the United States.

According to Neff, ConforMIS plans to will use its technology to look at other joints in the future, but she wouldn’t specify which joints it planned on exploring yet.