Total shoulder replacement study underway at Yale

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- The first patient of a Yale study was in surgery Monday and should restore shoulder rotation to nearly normal.

Benjamin Cianfichi was in with his wife Dara at the Department of Orthopaedics at Yale, getting last minute instructions for his total shoulder replacement surgery.

"I'm actually bone on bone with no cartilage," Cianfichi said.

Arthritis is to blame, after years of moving books as a librarian.

"This is as far as I can go with both arms, " he said, barely reaching shoulder level.

Cianfichi is the first patient at Yale for the first FDA approved study for the latest total shoulder replacement
state of the art solution. 

"I didn't expect to be a surgical celebrity," he said.

 Principal Investigator and Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Theodore Blaine will insert a much smaller prosthesis.

"Rather than replace it with a big stem down the center of the bone, you'll have a very small little nucleus right in in here," Dr. Blaine said.

It's the simpliciti nucleus.

"We see this small metal component that goes into the bone," Dr. Blaine said pointing to the impant. "This particular design implant is a very small size implant, preserves and conserves the bone so if we have to do other operations in the future, we'll be able to do that."

The nearly two hour surgery will enable Dr. Blaine to size and insert the  implant.

"We can see again how very little of the bone we've had to remove in the humerus to do this replacement model of the bone," Dr. Blaine said.          

The goal is to restore Cianfichi's left shoulder back to normal as much as possible.

"For me, just to be able to get range of motion back to do things in my business, which is baking and rolling out products of that nature," he said.

There are people who will not benefit from the procedure.

Dr. Blaine explained, "those are patients with very poor bone quality because this is a smaller size implant, it really needs to have good bone quality to insert into, to have a stable fixation." 

Monday's surgery went well for Cianfichi, but he will spend the night in the hospital.

If all goes well, he will eventually have his right shoulder done as well.

For more information call Claudia Moore, Clinical Research Coordinator at Yale University at 203-737-5515 Yale's Department of Orthopedics website .