Sean Grambart, D.P.M.’01, FACFAS, assistant dean for clinical affairs in DMU’s College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery (CPMS), served on a team of physicians who designed a better way to help patients with lower-limb fractures: the Volition™ Ankle Fracture Plating System.
In its announcement this fall of the new system, Ortho Solutions Group, a specialist orthopedic foot and ankle company that designs and develops implants, stated the new system’s “fracture-specific plates are set to change the landscape in dealing with Type IIA, IIB and III posterior tibial fractures as well as the classic uni- and bi-malleolar fractures.” The malleolus is the bony prominence on each side of the human ankle at the end of the larger leg bone – the tibia, or shinbone.
“This is a fracture system that is designed based on how we are gaining knowledge on the importance and complexity of the posterior malleolus fracture,” Dr. Grambart says. “The Volition System gives the surgeon better options for the surgical fixation of different ankle fractures to achieve better outcomes.”
A diplomat of the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery, a fellow of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons and past ACFAS president, Dr. Grambart was invited by Ortho Solutions to join the original design team in part because of the large trauma and reconstruction surgical practice he had prior to joining the DMU CPMS faculty. Other team members were Professor Lyndon Mason and Andrew Molloy from the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom; Samuel Adams, M.D., of Duke University; Pedro Cosculluela, M.D., of Houston Methodist; and David Thordarson, M.D., of Cedars Sinai.
In 2017, Mason and Molloy published a pathomechanistic posterior malleolar fracture classification based on analysis of more than 120 CT scans. This classification led to a blueprint and algorithm useful in that different ankle fracture patterns call for distinct treatment strategies. The Volition system features plate designs based on the classification.
“It is amazing how long it takes to develop a system, but we are very proud of our design to help both patients and surgeons,” Dr. Grambart says.
