Lund Hospital Presentation

History
Lund University Hospital was founded about 225 years ago. With some 1700 beds, the hospital is a regional referral centre for southern Sweden.

The hospital’s faculty of medicine conducts research - experimental as well as clinical - in a variety of fields. The faculty comprises approximately 110 full professors, with as many as 100 doctoral dissertations being presented annually. For clinical training and research, the faculty has access to two teaching hospitals: University Hospital in Lund and University Hospital MAS in Malmö. Cooperation between the faculty and the public health authorities is extensive, resulting in the continuous increase of joint projects http://www.medfak.lu.se.

Lund University, founded in 1666, is the second oldest university in Sweden. Today the university is a modern international centre for research and higher education http://www.lu.se.

Orthopaedics has been a separate discipline in Lund for 90 years. It is connected to the university, where it is part of the Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund.

Also located in Lund is the Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register.

Department of Orthopaedics
The majority of health care consumption in orthopaedics is related to joint diseases (osteoarthrosis and rheumatoid arthritis), fractures, back problems, injuries and tumours. The Department of Orthopaedics at Lund University Hospital bears this out in its research activities.

Research on joint disease and its consequences spans from basic biochemical investigations to applied projects that monitor the outcome of arthroplasties nationwide. These projects seek to do the following:

develop methods for diagnosis and monitoring of early-stage osteoarthrosis through patient-administered outcome scores, radiography, arthroscopy, MRI and analysis of joint fluid and serum markers of cartilage turnover, as well as investigate the disease mechanisms
improve diagnostic and reconstructive techniques after knee ligament injury
improve and develop techniques for joint replacement in the rheumatoid joint
study the process and causes of joint implant loosening in the hip and the knee
investigate patterns of knee joint implant failure related to time, implant type, age, etc. in a nationwide multicenter study

Laboratory facilities exist within the department for the following areas: biomaterial, biomechanics, cartilage metabolism, animal experiments, bone transplantation and radiostereometry. In addition to some 30 MD clinical investigators, a total of 6 laboratory technicians, 5 engineers/engineering students and 4 secretaries are engaged in the department’s research work. Currently, 30 graduate students are working on their Ph.D. theses within the department.

With the opening of the Biomedical Centre (BMC), linked to the university hospital, the collaboration with preclinical research in cell- and molecular biology within connective tissue, enhanced

For more information, go to: http://www.ort.lu.se and http://www.medfak.lu.se/bmc/

The Swedish Knee Arthroplasty
In 1975 the Swedish Orthopaedic Society initiated a prospective nationwide study called the Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register.

More than 7000 primary and revision knee arthroplasties are performed annually in Sweden. The Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Register monitors the results of these procedures, evaluating the possible effects of prostheses’ design and material as well as other factors contributing to the knee prosthetic revision rate. The register also formulates long-term prognoses of primary and revised unicompartmental arthroplasties.

Eighty different hospitals in Sweden participate in the register, which is supervised by Otto Robertsson.

Benefits of the register

The register provides data of separate studies on the population of patients with knee arthroplasty.
The register’s individual results allow for comparisons among different products and methods, thereby aiding in decision making and ensuring that suitable choices are made.
The very act of monitoring procedures and results encourages units and surgeons to do their best.
Information from the register is used to explain to patients what to expect, why specific methods are employed, when surgery is not appropriate, etc.

For more information, see http://www.ort.lu.se/knee/

Bone Joint Decade
On January 13, 2000 the Bone and Joint Decade, proposed by the UN, was formally launched at the headquarters of the World Health Organization, in Geneva, Switzerland. The Bone and Joint Decade itself is headquartered in Lund, Sweden, under the leadership of the ISC Chairman, Prof. Lars Lidgren. The Bone and Joint Decade aims to improve health-related quality of life for individuals with musculoskeletal disorders throughout the world. For more information, see www.boneandjointdecade.org/.