Part of the ongoing development of joint replacement technology requires assessment of the long term results of current designs and particularly bearing surfaces. Dr Zicat is involved in assessment of these procedures, and his patients have an opportunity to contribute to this.
This involvement is completely voluntary, and not a requirement of treatment at his practice.
If you decide that you would like to be involved in this research, participation is not onerous. It involves answering one or two pages of questions about your function and pain levels, preoperatively, and beginning again 2 years after surgery. Information is also collected on your joint movement, and the appearance of your x-rays.
This information is collected without identifying you, and collated on a database that Dr Zicat has developed and maintained over the past more than 20 years. There are currently over 8,000 hip and knee replacement patients on the database, over 30,000 follow up points with clinical scores, and over 20,000 x-ray assessments.
Needless to say, the information provided by reviewing the results of large numbers of patients contributes significantly to the knowledge base around joint replacement surgery, and this is used as the basis for articles in peer reviewed publications for the purpose of ongoing education within the orthopaedic community.
The database that Dr Zicat has developed, and the manner of information gathering, storage and dissemination has the approval of the ethics committee of the Mater Hospital and The University of Notre Dame.
