Dr. Jason Nowak, foot and ankle surgeon with North Shore Foot & Ankle of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, discusses why specially designed kits—including the Arsenal Foot™ Bone Harvesting Kit, Arsenal Foot™ Joint Prep Kit, and the Duotome™ instrument—mean he and his team no longer roam the hospital for instruments.

What are you most excited about with the new Arsenal Foot™ Bone Harvesting Kit and Arsenal Foot™ Joint Prep Kit?

From a joint prep standpoint, you have the confidence of knowing you’re walking into a case with all the instrumentation you need. You won’t be left scrambling, looking for a set that's buried somewhere in central sterile in the hospital basement.

You know all the instruments will be new and sharp, which is critical. At the same time, you have the bone harvester readily available. That makes things more efficient for the staff as well—they’re not trying to track down instruments during the case. Everything is there and easily accessible.

From a joint prep standpoint, you have the confidence of knowing you’re walking into a case with all the instrumentation you need.

When will you benefit most from using the Arsenal Foot™ Joint Prep Kit?

From ankle to toe, the joint prep kits are well-suited for anyone performing an arthrodesis case. Prepping joints effectively helps you avoid unnecessary delays in the OR.

When will you benefit most from using the Arsenal Foot™ Bone Harvesting Kit?

In many ways, it’s similar. A lot of us are utilizing autograft in many of our fusion cases, whether it's forefoot, midfoot, or hind-foot and ankle fusions.

Much like the joint prep kit, finding a hospital-owned harvester can mean dusting off a 30-year-old set and hoping all the parts are there. I see this going hand-in-hand with the joint prep kit. Anytime you’re doing a fusion, it’s a one-two punch—you want both readily available.

What were your first impressions of the Duotome™ instrument?

The Duotome™ is really unique.

You can either push or pull to prep the joints. From a contour standpoint, that can help you reach back corners of the joint or work along a rounded surface, like in a TN fusion.

In some situations, being able to pull is safer. You don't have to worry about diving deep into unknown tissue that you can't see well, and you can work the joint prep back toward the center of the joint. That’s a significant benefit of the Duotome™.

Why does ‘Sharp Every Time’ matter?

It matters quite a bit!

You never know what you’re going to get with older, hospital-owned sets. Pieces are often missing, and the instruments themselves may be decades old and dull. All sorts of things happen to them in the OR.

Too often, when you need something to be sharp, it isn’t. From an efficiency standpoint, sharper instruments allow you to collect bone graft more effectively. That also helps reduce the risk of thermal necrosis around the harvest site or the autograft you’re obtaining. Harvesting more efficiently helps keep the graft healthier.

How will using these instruments impact your patients?

Surgeons often want to use autograft, but for a variety of reasons, they may end up relying on allograft instead. That can be due to a lack of appropriate instrumentation, the time it takes to track down the right tools, or the inefficiencies of using older systems.

We all know autograft is the gold standard—it leads to better outcomes from a union standpoint. Having the right instrumentation allows surgeons to obtain autograft more consistently and more efficiently, which ultimately benefits patients.

Dr. Nowak is a paid consultant at Enovis.