Anatomical research continues to have practical applications, for example, in the design of new implants or prosthetic devices.
He also argued that given the high success rate of existing designs, it would be statistically impossible to run enough studies to prove the new implants' supposed superiority.
France will foot the bill for the implant removals, but will only pay for new implants in women who had them for reconstructive surgery after breast cancer.
Once the new implants are in, his patients are propped up on the operating table, look in a mirror and have their say.
And lawmakers and others are now calling for a tightening of how the F.D.A. scrutinizes new implants — both before and after they are sold.
Only overseas, where defibrillators have been slower to catch on, has the number of new implants continued to rise, hitting a new sales high of $1.93 billion last year.
He said that patients might be as well served by these glasses as by the new implants, and that he hoped long-term studies would compare the benefits of the two approaches.
Ultimately, new implants and new designs need to be assessed in controlled clinical studies.
With these new implants, however, have come changes in surgical technique.
Arthroscopic techniques use new implants designed to align and reduce the coracoclavicular space.
Great effort is put into the development of new implants that are designed for better cementless fixation.
