Dr. Frank Liporace Helps Create Surgical Hardware and Techniques to Improve Patient Care
Sometimes in medicine, as in life, timing is everything. Nobody knows this better than Frank Liporace, MD, Chairman of Orthopedics at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center (CBMC), who trained for his career in orthopedic surgery in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a time of incredible advances within his chosen field.
“The 1990s and early 2000s saw the biggest growth in orthopedics, both in surgical techniques and in the philosophy of how to treat different medical problems,” he says. “I was fortunate to train with many of the icons in our field who were leading those pivotal changes.”
Dr. Liporace learned from his mentors and followed in their footsteps, subsequently forging his own path, not just as a top orthopedic surgeon, but as an innovator, designer and inventor. Working with design teams that include surgeons, engineers and marketing executives, Dr. Liporace—an internationally recognized expert who has given more than 400 lectures worldwide and whose work has been published in more than 140 peer-reviewed journals—has helped create surgical hardware and techniques to make orthopedic surgery easier and more efficient and to improve the way patients
receive orthopedic care.
“Everyone who suffers a broken bone wants to get better as quickly as possible, return to the way they were before and recover with the least chance of complications,” says Dr. Liporace. “That’s what innovations in orthopedics bring to people locally, nationally and internationally.”
REVOLUTIONIZING CARE FOR HIP AND LEG FRACTURES
One of Dr. Liporace’s passions is improving care for hip fractures, an orthopedic injury that impacts more than 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. Most hip fractures occur in people over age 65, many of whom already have several existing and serious health conditions. In the worst cases, hip fractures can be fatal.
Among the first innovations Dr. Liporace helped create is a surgical system that strengthens a fixed hip fracture so patients can bear weight on their repaired hip immediately, increasing their chances for a successful outcome.
“The system makes the surgery technically easier for surgeons and helps match a patient’s anatomy and biomechanics better,” says Dr. Liporace. Additionally, through the accelerated care hip fracture program that Dr. Liporace started at CBMC, “We’ve dramatically decreased morbidity and mortality, the incidence of blood clots and narcotic usage after hip fracture. And we’ve increased the number of people who go home directly from the hospital instead of going to a rehabilitation facility.”
Other surgical implants he has released and are about to be released include a nail system for treating proximal humerus fractures, tibia fractures, femur fractures and ankle arthritis; a plating system for proximal humerus fractures; and a revision knee replacement system for the most complex failed knee replacements and situations of catastrophic bone loss. People who suffer leg fractures just above the knee joint—called distal femur fractures—have similar postsurgical concerns. Dr. Liporace helped design an enhanced surgical technique that uses a combination of surgical nails and plates to fix these types of fractures and help patients ambulate faster and recover quicker after surgery.
He also worked with a team that created a system of plates and screws to help improve surgical results for people who suffer broken bones in areas around the implants of a total hip replacement.
“What’s innovative today will be outdated in the future,” Dr. Liporace says. “It’s our responsibility to lead by example and show the next generation of surgeons how they can improve orthopedic care even further.”
To make an appointment with Dr. Liporace, call 973-322-7005.