Wrist Replacement Devices Market Forecast to Grow

Wrist surgery is embracing more and more technologically advanced endeavors, in an effort to provide arthritis patients with improved freedom of movement. These are the latest findings of GlobalData (London, United Kingdom), an international business intelligence provider.

According to the report, the global patient population is set to swell, due to an increasingly aging population that will suffer persistent wrist pain caused by degenerative osteoarthritis (OA), traumatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and gout. The two main surgical solutions to these problems are total wrist replacement (TWR) and total wrist fusion (TWF). TWF provides significant pain relief (but at the expense of wrist motion), while in contrast, TWR focuses on preserving wrist motion, allowing patients the ability to continue with daily activities.

TWF has historically been the more popular option, with much less risk of complications than TWR, which requires extensive bone resection. But TWR has been gaining momentum as a choice for patients who want to retain more motion and have more functional use of their hand; long-term clinical efficacy still needs to be proven, since the majority of TWR clinical trials so far have been only short-term studies, and failure rates and complication rates have been high beyond five years of implantation, making it a challenge for physicians to justify TWR procedures.

Several types of implants are available, constructed from silicone, titanium, and polyethylene, and recent improvements in TWR implant design has shown marked improvement, with issues of implants loosening and small bone perforation being resolved. Orthopedic surgeons have also called for TWR devices with alternative materials and coatings to give better biological fixation. Increasing popularity among patients and doctors will drive technology to improve further, as competition increases amongst current TWR players and new companies looking to enter the market.

Both surgical solutions still need some perfecting before they are embraced by the masses, and an additional consideration is that better surgical training is needed, as joint replacement for the wrist is a complex surgical procedure with a high learning curve for the surgeon. Physicians have stated that refined instrumentation is required to obtain more successful implantation.

The TWR sales market across the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, China, and India was worth an estimated USD 32.1 million in 2012, and this value is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.08%, reaching USD 46.1 million by 2018. The TWF market was estimated to be worth USD 30.4 million in 2012 across the same markets, and is estimated to reach over USD 33.7 million by 2018, representing a CAGR of 1.67%.

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