Richard Lehman (surgeon) - Professional Achievements

Professional Achievements

In conjunction with Biomet, Dr. Lehman revolutionized cartilage regeneration techniques to further growth and reconstruction of articular cartilage. He's also written and lectured extensively on the subject.

Dr. Lehman has written three books on tennis injuries and published extensively in orthopedic literature and sports medicine journals.

In Racquet Sports: Injury Treatment and Prevention, Dr. Lehman created guidelines to help decrease the rehabilitation protocol and decrease the reinjury rate in tennis players. For the rehabilitation of the athlete with an injured shoulder, wrist or hand he recommended the appropriate size of a racquet, string tension, string type, grip size and tennis ball type. He included a graduated rehabilitation plan that cascaded from structured practice to structured matches.

Part of Dr. Lehman's motivation to provide such guidelines was due to the fact that open shoulder surgery at the time offered an unacceptably low rate of successful return to preinjury levels. Thus, he championed a uniformly successful regimen and a prophylactic program to decrease the number of injured athletes.

In 2005, Dr. Lehman recommended a new fixation technique for lateral elbow reconstruction. This technique is described In Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery. The diagnosis of posterolateral rotatory instability of the elbow is difficult, but is more common than elbow dislocations. Pinpointing this diagnosis, Lehman says, is subtle, depending on patient complaints of a significant pop in the elbow.

Treatment of this problem starts with physical therapy, diminishment of activity and aggressive strengthing. When the recurrent instability occurs and symptoms are not resolved, treatment is surgical. Dr. Lehman's technique uses interference fit screws instead of bone tunnels. The technique utilizes a standard free graft and the isometric points on the lateral epicondylar ride and ulna are identified, all improvements to the original procedure. Furthermore, fixation is completed after the isometricity of the insertion site is ensured and the graft is appropriately tensioned. This procedure is an upgrade because there is much less trauma to the elbow, the fixation is stronger and scarring is minimized with this technique.

In 2003, Dr. Lehman recommended an all-arthroscopic procedure for partial rotator cuff tears, an area of arthroscopic surgery, including partial rotator cuff tear treatment and natural history, that was in a constant state of change. His recommendation centered around the idea that tears in the rotator cuff should be treated surgically when the cuff was torn more than 50% of the thickness or when substantial thinning of the rotator cuff is identified. Surgically treating partial rotator cuff tears, Lehman contended, would help protect and limit further breakdown, but, more importantly, addresses the need for increased blood supply in the rotator cuff and diminishes the chance for full rotator cuff tear.

However, even with the introduction of new arthroscopic techniques like Dr. Lehman's, there is still no standard treatment protocol for partial-thickness rotator cuff tears.

Also in 2003, Dr. Lehman recommended a procedure to treat articular cartilage full-thickness lesions. This procedure was a modification of the medical procedures microfracture and autologous autograft transplantation, two surgeries with shortcomings in terms of difficulty, expense, surgical morbidity and availability of grafting material.

In September 2010 at the International Cartilage Repair Society meeting in Barcelona, Spain, Dr. Lehman and Dr. Phillip A. Davidson presented a paper on the effectiveness and safety of a device known as the OsseoFit Porous Tissue Matrix, believed to be the first report on the use of this device in a bone and cartilage application.

Dr. Lehman isn't limited to surgical work with humans. In 2010 he was part of team of doctors exploring a new, two-phased tissue graft designed to repair bone and cartilage damage to horses. After four and twelve month check ups, the study suggests that this procedure improves defect fill earlier, as compared to microfracture, and is able to maintain repair out to 12-months post-operative.