News & Media

October, 2007

FATIMA ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON FIRST IN STATE TO INTRODUCE
NEW KNEE REPLACEMENT

(North Providence, RI, October 24, 2007) Dr. Michael Belanger, an orthopedic surgeon based in Johnston, recently became the first Rhode Island-based surgeon to perform an innovative new knee replacement procedure that precisely mimics the anatomy of an individual's knee.

The new procedure allows for the replacement knee to more identically match, versus approximate, the anatomy of an individual patient's knee. This is expected to offer the patient a faster relief of chronic knee pain and a far more reliable return to desired range of motion in the knee.

Using a new software program to assist in a MRI procedure, Dr. Belanger was able to precisely "map" the knee of a female patient awaiting knee replacement. Using this imagery, Dr. Belanger was able to perform pre-operative and intra operative measurements that allow for precession cuts to the patient's bone structure to accept the knee replacement itself.

Prior to this new technique, the standard in knee surgery was to select a replacement that was configured to either the male or female knee structure and an estimate of the patient's size. "This procedure takes knee replacement beyond gender specificity to individual specificity" stated Dr. Belanger. The new procedure allows for a faster, and thus less invasive surgery, less post operative pain for the patient and it provides the patient with a reliable return to the limb alignment and range of motion that they have lost."

Dr. Belanger is a graduate of the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed an orthopedic residency at the Brown University Medical School. He also completed a fellowship in orthopedic trauma at the Brown program as well as a sports medicine fellowship at the University of Oklahoma and is a fellow in the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine.

The following physicans are trained and credentialed to perform this procedure
at Fatima Hospital.

Michael J. Belanger, MD
A. Robert Buonanno, MD
Sidney Migliori, MD