YSU doctor touts improved knee treatment

By Greg Gulas

sports@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Dr. Ray Duffett, Youngstown State’s team physician for the past 24 years, said cutting-edge research keeps improving, which is changing the way injuries are treated — particularly knee replacements.

Duffett, speaking to the Curbstone Coaches on Monday, said doctors can now take an MRI of an arthritic knee to create guides, or “jigs,” for the femur and the tibia, helping create a “patient-specific” prosthetic.

Another process, called uni-compartmental arthroplasty, can be used for a half total knee replacement as well.

Duffett said more patients are having minimally invasive surgery. Titanium rods are used with smaller incisions required for fractures and total hip replacements.

Sports injuries that would have ended careers just a few years ago are now treatable, Duffett said. For instance, Alabama center Barrett Jones, who won the Rimington Trophy last season as the nation’s top center, sustained a Lisfranc injury. But the sprained, almost dislocated foot was surgically repaired after the national championship game.

“With screws and with hard work, he should be able to return to the field and play,” Duffett said.

For Duffett, it’s as if the treatment of major knee injuries is coming full circle.

“When I was a resident in the early 1980s we performed surgery on the knees almost immediately,” he said. “We then learned that knees were often stiff and like when New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady hurt his knee, he wasn’t operated on until approximately six weeks later. We called that pre-habilitation as he both rehabbed and rehabilitated his knee prior to surgery.”

“Now, like with the injury to Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin, III, one of the top sports medicine physicians in the world, Dr. James Andrews from Birmingham, Ala., operated on him just three days later.”

In addition to Dr. Andrews, three other individuals have had a major influence on Duffett: Dr. Victor Goldberg, the chairman at Case Medical Center, who Duffet considers to be the top authority on total joint replacement; and the father-son team of Dr. Robert and Rob Heidt, team physicians for the Cincinnati Bengals, who are specialists in total joint replacement and sports medicine.

Duffett is part of the University Orthopaedics Group with former YSU punter, Dr. J.J. Stefancin, and Dr. Jim Shina, an internist. The practice is located on Belmont Avenue near the St. Elizabeth Medical Center.

Next week, Ron Strollo, YSU director of athletics, will serve as guest speaker.