This is a retrospective cohort of 41 consecutive patients treated with a non-customized semiconstrained Coonrad-Morrey total elbow prosthesis for post-traumatic osteoarthrosis or dysfunction. It asks whether a single semiconstrained device can reliably manage severe post-traumatic elbow destruction, including in younger patients. Follow-up averaged 5 years 8 months, out to 12 years.
When you face a destroyed, unstable, multiply-operated elbow, semiconstrained total elbow replacement is often the only viable reconstruction. Arthrodesis cripples function and interposition arthroplasty fails with bone loss.
The central teaching point is a paradox: this implant works so well at restoring a stable, pain-free elbow that patients overuse it and break the ulnar stem. The failure mode here is mechanical, not the aseptic loosening that doomed the old fully constrained hinges.
The decision rule follows directly. Reserve this procedure for low-demand patients, counsel strictly on the 4.5 kg lifting limit, and treat anticipated non-compliance and strenuous labor as relative contraindications, especially under age 60.
Also commit to memory that marked preoperative deformity raised the complication rate from 6% to 50%. Deformity correction comes at the cost of accelerated bushing wear.
This is a retrospective cohort of 41 consecutive patients treated with a non-customized semiconstrained Coonrad-Morrey total elbow prosthesis for post-traumatic osteoarthrosis or dysfunction. It asks whether a single semiconstrained device can reliably manage severe post-traumatic elbow destruction, including in younger patients. Follow-up averaged 5 years 8 months, out to 12 years.
When you face a destroyed, unstable, multiply-operated elbow, semiconstrained total elbow replacement is often the only viable reconstruction. Arthrodesis cripples function and interposition arthroplasty fails with bone loss.
The central teaching point is a paradox: this implant works so well at restoring a stable, pain-free elbow that patients overuse it and break the ulnar stem. The failure mode here is mechanical, not the aseptic loosening that doomed the old fully constrained hinges.
The decision rule follows directly. Reserve this procedure for low-demand patients, counsel strictly on the 4.5 kg lifting limit, and treat anticipated non-compliance and strenuous labor as relative contraindications, especially under age 60.
Also commit to memory that marked preoperative deformity raised the complication rate from 6% to 50%. Deformity correction comes at the cost of accelerated bushing wear.