15.9.2022

39th AGA Congress

From September 15 to 17, innovations and advances in joint surgery and arthroscopy were reported at the 39th Congress of the German-speaking Working Group for Arthroscopy (AGA) in Vienna. Under the motto “Expectations — keep turning the wheel,” a very diverse program on the latest technical developments and trends awaited visitors, including topics such as “Expectations of joint surgery today and tomorrow,” “Reinterpreting old techniques,” “The athlete as a patient,” and much more.

‍Focus on needle arthroscopy, joint maintenance and orthobiologics

“With the help of arthroscopy, we are already able to treat joint injuries very gently and with much shorter hospital stays,” explained Congress President Dr. Roman C. Ostermann in a mailing. “Arthroscopy gently operates on the joints, thoroughly flushes the joint with liquid, the infection rate is lower and the scars are much smaller,” emphasized the specialist in orthopedics and traumatology.

Technical developments are also becoming more and more advanced. For example, the next generation of arthroscopes “is so thin and small that some treatments can even be performed in offices using local anesthesia,” explains Dr. Ostermann.

Another trend in joint surgery is to try to avoid foreign materials as much as possible and, where necessary, to develop implants that can retain as much bone or joint material as possible.

In addition, orthobiologics are increasingly using substances that occur naturally in the body to stimulate wound healing, tissue healing and tissue regeneration. Ostermann refers to stem cells, platelet concentrates and hyaluronic acid, for example.

Haemo Pharma Symposia

With our two symposia, we were able to enrich the diverse conference program.

Under the title”Cartilage regeneration taken to the next level — How do we optimize the clinical results of the surgical procedure“have Prim. Priv. -Dr. DDr. Christian Albrecht, Prof. Dr. Christoph Becher, and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Nehrer report on the use of Hyalofast, NanoFX, Spherox and IMPACT.

”Rotator cuff reconstruction taken to the next level — new innovative materials and techniques“was the topic of our second symposium with Priv. -Docs. Dr. Philipp Heuberer and Dr. Michael Koch. Here, the current study situation in rotator cuff reconstruction was discussed and new innovative materials such as PEEK CF from Parcus Medical were presented. Treatment and post-treatment with orthobiologics were intensively examined and discussed.

AGA is Europe's largest specialist association for arthroscopy. More than 1,400 renowned medical specialists from German-speaking countries and other experts visited this year's conference.