New LEGION™ Narrow Femoral Components with OXINIUM™ offer improved patient specific fit and wear performance

LONDON, Dec. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Smith & Nephew (LSE: SN, NYSE: SNN), the global medical technology business, today announces an extension to its highly successful LEGION™ Total Knee System - LEGION™ Narrow Femoral Components with OXINIUM™ Oxidized Zirconium. The only narrow components that offer Smith & Nephew's proprietary VERILAST™ Technology, these new implants offer surgeons and their patients the potential for implants with better fit and wear performance.  

These new LEGION components are thinner in the medial/lateral dimension (side-to-side) to give surgeons the ability to more closely fit a patient's natural anatomy.  For patients with smaller femurs, using a femoral component that is too wide can result in overhang of the femoral component. Studies have shown that improving implant fit can reduce pain and increase satisfaction among total knee replacement patients.ⁱ

In addition to fit, the new femoral components address implant wear performance with the use of VERILAST Technology. The combination of two wear reducing materials – the proprietary OXINIUM alloy and a highly cross-linked plastic liner, VERILAST Technology has the potential to improve the wear performance of an implant.  In fact, even on traditional plastic liners, OXINIUM implants are 4,900 times more abrasion resistant than cobalt chrome and have been shown in lab testing to reduce artificial joint wear by 85-percent compared to cobalt chromium femoral components.ⁱⁱ

"These new components further demonstrate the LEGION Total Knee System's commitment to patient specific fit," says Dr. Steven Haas, Chief of Knee Service at The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. "When you add the LEGION Narrow options to the system's existing asymmetric tibias, gender-based sizing and advanced bearing materials, the ability for me to optimize fit for each of my patients is really exciting."

"Two of the biggest concerns with any total knee replacement are wear performance  and fit," explains Scott Elliott, SVP & General Manager, Reconstructive Strategic Business Unit for Smith & Nephew's Advanced Surgical Devices Division. "With the LEGION Total Knee System, we offer an unprecedented solution to both: VERILAST Technology for wear performance and new size options to address patient fit."

First introduced in 1997, the LEGION Total Knee System is a comprehensive system that allows surgeons to address a diverse range of surgical challenges with one system of instrumentation and components. The system includes both cruciate retaining and posterior stabilized primary knees, as well as revision knees and has more than 15 years of clinical history and continues to achieve outstanding clinical outcomes.ⁱⁱⁱ

About Smith & Nephew

Smith & Nephew is a global medical technology business dedicated to helping improve people's lives.  With leadership positions in Orthopaedic Reconstruction, Advanced Wound Management, Sports Medicine and Trauma, Smith & Nephew has almost 11,000 employees and a presence in more than 90 countries. Annual sales in 2011 were nearly $4.3 billion.  Smith & Nephew is a member of the FTSE100 (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN).

Forward-looking Statements
This document may contain forward-looking statements that may or may not prove accurate. For example, statements regarding expected revenue growth and trading margins, market trends and our product pipeline are forward-looking statements. Phrases such as "aim", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "well-placed", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target", "consider" and similar expressions are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by the statements. For Smith & Nephew, these factors include: economic and financial conditions in the markets we serve, especially those affecting health care providers, payors and customers; price levels for established and innovative medical devices; developments in medical technology; regulatory approvals, reimbursement decisions or other government actions; product defects or recalls; litigation relating to patent or other claims; legal compliance risks and related investigative, remedial or enforcement actions; strategic actions, including acquisitions and dispositions, our success in integrating acquired businesses, and disruption that may result from changes we make in our business plans or organisation to adapt to market developments; and numerous other matters that affect us or our markets, including those of a political, economic, business or competitive nature. Please refer to the documents that Smith & Nephew has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including Smith & Nephew's most recent annual report on Form 20-F, for a discussion of certain of these factors.

Any forward-looking statement is based on information available to Smith & Nephew as of the date of the statement. All written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to Smith & Nephew are qualified by this caution. Smith & Nephew does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect any change in circumstances or in Smith & Nephew's expectations.

Trademark of Smith & Nephew.  Registered US Patent and Trademark Office.

ⁱ Overhang of the Femoral Component in Total Knee Arthroplasty: Risk Factors and Clinical Consequences;   JBJS 2010 ; Ormonde M. Mahoney, MD

ⁱⁱ G. Hunter and M. Long, "Abrasive wear of oxidized Zr-2.5Nb, CoCrMo, and Ti-6Al-4V against bone cement", 6th World Biomaterials Cong. Trans., Society For Biomaterials, Minneapolis, MN, 2000, p. 835.

ⁱⁱⁱ Based on GENESIS II clinical data; Knee. 2012 Jan;19(1):8-13. Epub 2011 Apr 14., The Genesis II in primary total knee replacement: a systematic literature review of clinical outcomes., Bhandari M, Pascale W, Sprague S, Pascale V.

SOURCE Smith & Nephew

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