Conventus Orthopaedics, Inc., a Minneapolis, Minnesota, fracture fixation company, has completed enrollment for a clinical study of its Conventus DRS Implant for peri-articular fractures, according to an August 1 news release. The international multi-center clinical study has enrolled 60 patients from six institutions throughout Germany and Switzerland.
Conventus designed its implant to provide a less invasive means for orthopedic surgeons to treat patients with this traumatic injury, hoping to return them to normal daily activities sooner and with less pain.
Company officials say that the Conventus DRS technology provides clinicians with a self-expanding implant that stabilizes the fractured bone fragments from within the bone. The surgical procedure requires only a two to three centimeter incision on the forearm and a few small incisions distally.
The technique is claimed to reduce surgical trauma by as much as 70% compared to traditional plate and screws fixation and preserves soft tissues around the fracture to minimize stiffness, swelling, and pain. The developers believe that the DRS technology represents the first minimally-invasive, fragment-specific system that effectively addresses a wide range of fracture patterns with fixation strength as good as or better than traditional plates and screws.
A team of medical device professionals and physicians founded Conventus Orthopaedics, Inc. in 2008 to provide less invasive solutions to a broad range of challenging end-bone fractures. They took their name from the Latin word for coming together or union.
