"We are working with Hudson and he is doing very, very well … Thank you so much for your...
"You prolonged 'Kiva's' life, as well as the quality of his life. We will never forget your...
"Your staff pulled off a miracle for us, and we are overjoyed to have 'George' home again."
"It's very comforting to know that such compassionate and knowledgeable doctors and staff are...
"A special thank you to the staff members that shared their lunches with 'Tosha' to try to coax...
Total Knee Replacements (TKR) have long since been considered the standard of care for the treatment of stifle joint Osteoarthritis (OA) in humans. In veterinary medicine, we have not been able to follow this model primarily due to the lack of long-term follow up data. GREAT NEWS!! We are pleased to report that we now have five-year follow-up on canine total knee joint replacements. Although cranial cruciate ligament disease is common, regardless of chonicity and osteoarthrosis, the current standard of care in veterinary medicine, is to recommend a traditional method of stabilization. It is our strong belief that the standard of care within a few years, for any dog with significant OA will be to perform a TKR, much the same as is recommended in people.
Although surgery may be challenging, there have been significant advancements made with regards to both instrumentation and implantation over time. This rapid evolution has primarily been made possible by the extensive experience gained from the application of total hip replacements over the last almost 40 years in veterinary medicine. We are now able to apply both cemented and non-cemented prostheses to both the distal femoral exoprosthesis and the proximal tibial endoprosthesis. Surgery itself, entails the application of a cobalt chrome distal femoral exoprosthesis and an ultra high weight polyethylene proximal tibial endoprosthesis. The post operative care protocols are similar to those of a standard cruciate stabilization. Our first implantation was performed in April 2007 and our experience leads us to believe prognosis is EXCELLENT for dogs post TKR. The indications include stifle osteoarthrosis, osseous malformations, current or previous fractures, certain patella luxations, and other distal femoral and proximal tibial deformities that can be corrected using a TKR. Please do not hesitate to contact Sarit Dhupa (at our Carlsbad campus) or any of the CVS surgical team to discuss any of these cases.
Below is a video of a patient navigating difficult terrain 4 months after performing double TKR (Total Knee Replacement).
Thank you again for your continued support. We are proud and honored to be your partner in providing continued and ever improving health care to your patients