August 1, 2008 Conformis, aims to stop agony of knee surgery Play video

(NECN) - Knee surgery is hardly a cutting edge procedure. Each year hundreds of thousands are performed in the US. In Massachusetts, one fast growing company is now hoping to offer some brand new technology to patients facing the operation.

600,000 Americans will get their crumbling, arthritic knees replaced this year with metal implants. The surgery's no fun and it can take months to recover.

Doctor Lang helped start a company, 'Conformis', that's tried to make knee surgery much easier on patients.

Next week it rolls out a new kind of implant that could help thousands more avoid the agony of full knee replacement.

Instead of replacing the whole knee, the Conformis system identifies only the bad bone that needs replacing ... conforming an implant to each patient