Nicholas Mellor
28 лют. 2026 р.
LSN launches an appeal to fund a UK trial comparing four ways of making prosthetic sockets, led by the University of Strathclyde and Imperial College London.
LSN has launched the Blackbird Appeal to fund the first phase of the Coeur Blanc initiative, a controlled UK trial of how prosthetic sockets are made.
The socket is the interface between the residual limb and the prosthesis, and it remains the main bottleneck in prosthetic care. Hand casting is the clinical benchmark, but it is slow and depends on scarce specialist skill. Direct casting and smartphone 3D scanning promise faster, more consistent results. The evidence for them is mixed: some studies report excellent fit, others poor fit, for the same technologies. No controlled study has yet compared them side by side.
The trial will do so. Adults with a below-knee amputation will be randomly assigned to one of four methods: traditional hand casting, thermoplastic direct casting, resin direct casting, or 3D scanning with digital manufacture. Researchers will measure comfort, activity, function, satisfaction, consistency across practitioners, and the time each method takes from shape capture to fitting.
The research team is Professor Arjan Buis and Dr Sarah Day of the University of Strathclyde and Dr Angela Kedgley and Professor Anthony Bull of Imperial College London. Nicholas Mellor of LSN is programme manager.
The principle is evidence before scale. Methods will be tested in the UK first, so that patients in conflict zones and low-income countries receive proven technology rather than experiments. Phase 2 will take the results to Jordan and other settings where the need is greatest.