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Doctor Alain Dambreville
was born in Roubaix on November 19, 1942.
Fellow ship, and then assistant senior
registrar at Lille University Hospital in the department of
Pr. Pierre Decoulx, he settled in Quimper in 1976.
The large number of dysplasia hip pathologies
in that region quickly caused him to turn towards prosthetic
hip surgery, which is his exclusive research area.
He designed the
Atlas® in 1986, and fitted the first one in July
1987.
The international success of the implant, which has not
stopped growing ever since, is a known fact
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He admits that it is a smart concept, but that
it owes a great deal of its success to luck. Many
advantages, initially unexpected, were found out later
on.
Thus, even if the polyethylene thickness was expected from
the start to be a crucial longevity factor, the equally
essential insert fastening system in the cup designed by
engineers proved to be highly efficient.
In the same way, Dr.
Dambreville had originally designed an elastic cup in order
to allow for bone elasticity. Actually, it was Jean Louis
Doré who found out in 1989 about the main advantage
of such elasticity : after impacting an
Atlas® cup bigger in size than the reaming,
installing the insert causes the elastic cup to expand,
providing the strong "press fit" effect.
Luck was also behind later
choices (Hydroxyapatite in 1989, alumina - alumina - PE
sandwich in 1997...).
Therefore Atlas®' success
is mainly due to FHI's engineers and friend surgeons, namely
the FUTURA
group.
Owing to FUTURA, Atlas® was
combined with André Ray's ESOP femoral
prosthesis in 1992. A happy combination, as
Atlas® has never been disappointed by ESOP, and vice
versa...
Alain Dambreville now lives in Nice, where
between two conventions, he devotes himself to his other
passion, chronic orthopaedic pain curing. He has published
several books on that subject.
To find out more : Click
here  (French version only)
To contact Dr
Dambreville
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