Novel Knee System Helps Patients Rediscover Movement

A new unicompartmental knee (UK) implant provides a highly personalized, customized approach to partial knee arthroplasty.

The Smith & Nephew (London, United Kingdom) JOURNEY II UK system with OXINIUM technology includes a lateral-specific tibia baseplate and an increased size range for femoral components and medial tibia baseplates, providing optimized bone coverage in both medial and lateral compartments of the knee. Partial knee options include the JOURNEY PFJ, with an anatomic design that conforms to patient anatomy, an ‘S’ shaped trochlear groove to provide optimal patella tracking, and a four peg divergent design that allows for superior fixation via a grit blasted undersurface.


In addition, the JOURNEY UNI provides a patella bend for relief from impingement while tracking, an anatomic bend that restores the bone with a more conforming fit and natural feel, a round on flat design that allows for anatomically driven kinematics, twin pegs to provide fixed bearing tibial fixation, and flex cut and divergent lugs to provide greater femoral fixation for active patients. The systems come in a modular, two-tray configuration that reduces operating room (OR) footprint and instrumentation, which can be customized to match a familiar surgical flow.

“Our JOURNEY II unicompartmental knee system brings a much-needed solution to the partial knee space. Our customers want it because partial knees enable faster recovery and improved functionality for their patients,” said Skip Kiil, President of Orthopaedics at Smith+Nephew. “Adding to these benefits, JOURNEY II UK is also designed to deliver high patient satisfaction.”

“The updated instrumentation presented by the JOURNEY II unicompartmental knee system, paired with the increased range in implant sizes and a lateral specific baseplate, makes it easy to reproducibly perform well-balanced medial and lateral unicompartmental arthroplasties,” said Tad Gerlinger, MD, of Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, IL, USA).

Partial knee replacement involves removing arthritic bone and cartilage from one or two of the knee compartments (medial, lateral, or patellofemoral), and replacing them with anatomically shaped metal and plastic components that are impacted on the bone or fixed using a bone cement. PKR also involves partial detachment of the quadriceps muscle from the patella to allow exposure of the distal end of the femur and the proximal end of the tibia.