All that glitters is not gold, goes the adage. This appears to be more true to a new knee replacement implant. City-based surgeon Suman Pendyala says the newly available “bionic gold knee joint implant” glitters like the yellow metal but is not actually made by the most coveted metal.
The material called bionic gold is actually worth more than its weight in gold to those going in for knee replacement, he says.
The conventional cobalt chrome alloy implant has been the only choice for decades. But German experts have come up with Titanium Niobium Nitride that is more inert than cobalt chrome alloy, Dr. Suman says.
At a press conference organised by the Ayush Hospitals on Thursday, Dr. Suman said bionic gold was harder than the conventional cobalt chrome, would not release metal ions into the blood and not react to nickel or chrome compounds. The hi flexion design is tailor made to the Asian bone structure and way of life.
The implant had been introduced in the market very recently, hospital managing committee chairman and chief anaesthesiologist Y. Ramesh Babu has said.
