Exactech Hits 15-Year Milestone with Clinical Use of Equinoxe Reverse Shoulder

Exactech commemorates the 15th anniversary of the launch of the Equinoxe® reverse prosthesis for shoulder joint replacement.

One of the first systems to utilize a platform humeral stem, Equinoxe reverse builds off all of the Equinoxe humeral stems, providing intraoperative flexibility and enabling surgeons to convert a well-fixed stem to a reverse without stem removal. The system was designed to lateralize the deltoid through the humerus to increase the deltoid moment arm length and create a more deltoid wrapping around the greater tuberosity, which aids stability, and better tensions the remaining cuff, to improve active rotation.

The team designed the Equinoxe reverse prosthesis beginning in 2005 by first optimizing Dr. Paul Grammont’s reverse shoulder prostheses using novel computer modeling techniques. By independently adjusting humeral neck angle, glenosphere center of rotation, glenosphere thickness, glenosphere offset and humeral liner constraint, the Equinoxe design team was able to identify the combinations of parameters that minimized scapular impingement, maximized range of motion and maximized stability – all while maintaining a medialized center of rotation near the glenoid face. This new Equinoxe design leveraged Dr. Grammont’s medialized center of rotation fixed-fulcrum design concept.

Key research highlights include:

• Low instability rate of <1.0%.
• Low aseptic glenoid loosening rate of <1.0%.
• Very low aseptic humeral loosening rate of <0.5%.
• Acromial/scapular fracture rates of 1.8% at 2-year minimum follow-up.
• Scapular notching rates <15% at 5-year minimum follow-up.
• 78% convertibility from anatomic to reverse shoulder.
• >34% of patients achieve ceiling scores with the Simple Shoulder Test.
• >80% of rTSA patients achieve internal rotation to the sacrum or higher.
• 97.3% clinical survivorship at 8-year follow-up.

“After 15 years of clinical experience, I am exceedingly proud of the positive outcomes that this product has achieved, which are well documented in 180+ published peer-reviewed journal articles,” said Chris Roche, Sr. Vice President, Extremities. “Because of these successes, we have continued to advance the art of innovation and science, by expanding our product offering over the past 15 years to build a complete line of shoulder arthroplasty solutions for straightforward to challenging cases. We were the first to offer several other products – reverse augments, a biomechanically designed humeral reconstruction system, the first platform shoulder navigation system, and a machine learning-based patient-specific outcome predictor. Congratulations to the surgeon team and product development group for this significant milestone.”

Source: Exactech