Dr. João Paulo Sousa

Orthopaedic Surgeon

Department Coordinator

10 years of knee arthroplasty at HPA Gambelas
10 years of innovation, differentiation, satisfaction

HPA Magazine 18

Lower limb arthroplasties (hip and knee prostheses) belong to a group of surgical procedures where the HPA Orthopedics Group (GO) have gained extensive differentiated experience since its inception eleven years ago.   They correspond to approximately 20% of the more than 8,000 patients operated on by the GO since the opening of this unit.

Contrary to what is usual in private practice, the GO is organized in a Department format with case sharing and discussion, so that most conditions, particularly the most difficult ones, are discussed among the Orthopedic Surgeons of the Unit. This organization has also permitted the creation of protocols and procedures that determine homogeneity in the follow-up of patients with benefit for all concerned.  It also allows for the collection and systematic treatment of data that, in addition to the publication of scientific papers (more than 40 communications in congresses and 10 indexed international publications, created in partnership with the University of Algarve), which has permitted us to control the quality of our medical activity.
 As far as  monitoring of the final results of patients that had undergone knee arthroplasty , we can say that in a survey where it was possible to evaluate 664 patients who when asked to rate their level of satisfaction between 1 and 10, almost 50% rated their satisfaction level at 10 and 89% classified it up to 7 (graph 1). Values are slightly lower when compared to those of hip arthroplasties which is expected. The results tended to be better in patients operated on by specific instrumentation (when instruments are custom-made specifically for each patient) but statistically the difference is insignificant when compared to conventional instrumentation. We can also say that the infection rate, the most feared complication of this type of intervention, is 0.35%, a result that rivals any center worldwide. 
Not many centers, public or private, are in a position to provide the patient they propose to operate, with this type of data which to us seems fundamental for the patient when making the decision on where he wishes to be treated.  It is for this reason that in 2017 we obtained from the Medical Association, internship training suitability status for Orthopedic Inters in lower limb arthroplasty. We hope in the short term to be able to train “our own interns”, filling a regional gap, since currently in the Algarve, there is no unit, public or private, with this training capacity.