‘Truly revolutionary’ – UK orthopaedic surgeon among 1st to use innovative new implant

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 18, 2025) – UK HealthCare Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine’s Austin Stone, M.D., Ph.D., is the first surgeon outside of California to use innovative OSSIOfiber screw implants, approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in 2020.

Unlike traditional metal implants or biodegradable implants, OSSIOfiber implants contain the same natural minerals found in bones, but stronger. When used in orthopaedic surgeries, the implant fully integrates into the bone’s anatomy with nothing left behind.

“We’ve had implants that biodegrade for a long time, but they’re actually detrimental to the healing process and don’t have good structure,” Stone said. “This is quite the opposite; with OSSIOfiber we’ve got something that facilitates healing and has excellent structure.”

So far, Stone has used the OSSIOfiber screws in a shoulder stabilization procedure and knee osteotomy. He says it’s important to recognize these procedures have been around for a long time, but it’s the new type of innovative screws that makes it unique.

These screws don’t biodegrade or break down — they turn into real bone in the body since the implant is made from the elements of bone and woven into a 3-D structure.

“The screw itself experiences some load within the tissue that causes remodeling of the elements of the screw to be incorporated into the local bone,” said Stone. “It actually does turn to bone.”

Metal screws hold bone in place, but do not facilitate healing and are potentially destructive since some screws can back out. Sometimes bone doesn’t heal well around a metal screw, because it is a static implant and isn’t native to the body.

The OSSIOfiber screws lead to better patient outcomes and healing since the material becomes bone, and it fuses together as one.

“This is one of the few truly revolutionary orthopedic implants that we’ve seen in a very long time, because we’ve moved away from products that stay in the body, like metal or plastic and move to something that does not break down but facilitates healing,” Stone said. “That’s the real revolutionary aspect of this. It’s going to become increasingly common in bone procedures.”

Stone’s patients who received the innovative OSSIOfiber implants are still in the early weeks of recovery, but he says they are feeling great and healing as expected.