Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[XenaLives]

Not saying it doesn't work for some... My point is that it doesn't work for many and the artificial joint eventually wears out so other viable alternatives should be considered. I had already had a metal reaction to a screw in the bunion surgery and it probably would not have worked for me.

Why don't we know what the real risks are for an individual? Probably because once they get approval the industry doesn't care or follow up, there's no money in it.

Growth in total knee replacement utilization has been disproportionately high among younger individuals (forty-five to sixty-four years old)12-14. As a result, the average age at which patients receive total knee replacement has decreased over time4. The rapid growth in total knee replacement utilization among younger adults, coupled with increased life expectancy, implies that many more individuals are living with total knee replacement longer than ever before.

Despite a high success rate and relatively low risks of failure and/or complications, as more adults in the U.S. undergo total knee replacement, the population at risk for such complications increases. While the annual utilization of total knee replacement over time has been described12,14,15, estimates of the number of persons in the U.S. living with knee implants have not been reported, to our knowledge. Such estimates would be useful in planning health services specific to the population living with total knee replacement, such as anticipation of revision total knee replacement and management of periprosthetic fractures and infections. We aimed to quantify the burden of total knee replacement in the U.S. by estimating the number of adults currently alive with a primary or revision total knee replacement.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3748969/

The incidence of joint replacement procedures is high, with over 1 million total hip and total knee replacement procedures performed each year in the United States1. With the aging of the “baby boomers,” higher rates of diagnosis and treatment of advanced arthritis, and growing demand for improved mobility and quality of life, the annual procedure volumes are projected to increase considerably in the future, making joint replacements the most common elective surgical procedures in the coming decades2,3. Such a large increase in demand is unprecedented and must be addressed with effective planning of health-care services for these individuals, not only during the perioperative period but throughout the lifelong continued care of this population.

To date, studies involving the descriptive epidemiology of total hip and total knee replacement have focused almost exclusively on annual procedure volumes (i.e., incidence)2-9. Although incidence data are informative, they offer an incomplete assessment of the impact of total hip and total knee replacement on the population and the health-care system. The prevalence of individuals who are currently living with an artificial hip or knee joint in the United States is currently unknown. Indeed, the increasing use of joint replacement in younger individuals, coupled with improvements in life expectancy, has created a large pool of individuals with hip and knee replacements in the United States2,10. These individuals not only have specialized needs, but in some cases, will outlive their implants and require expensive revision surgeries with substantial implications related to cost and resource use. Therefore, estimates of prevalence are vital to agencies charged with planning for the provision of health-care services for these individuals. We know of only one study to date that has provided prevalence estimates of total knee replacement, but the methodology used to estimate prevalence was based on a computer-simulation model of the natural history of osteoarthritis and did not take into account the substantial increase in procedure volumes in recent years. Therefore, we sought to estimate the current prevalence and historical trends in the prevalence of total hip and total knee replacement in the United States using multiple data sources and accounting for the secular increase in procedure volumes in recent years.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4551172/