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Abstract

A method and apparatus for installing a knee prosthetic component on a patient's tibia includes the selection by a surgeon of one of a plurality of reamers, each of the reamers having a different cutting size diameter such as for example between ten and twenty-two millimeters of cutting diameter. The reamer is initially selected as a very small reamer and the surgeon places progressively larger cutting diameter reamers in the patient's intermedullary canal until resistance or until the reamer becomes stuck. When the surgeon finds a reamer that is sized so that it will ream and cut cortical bone preferably a full three hundred and sixty degrees (360.degree.), the patient's intramedullary canal is cut and reamed into a depth which corresponds to the length of the stem portion of the femoral prosthetic component. Instrumentation is installed on the upper generally cylindrically shaped portion of the reamer as soon as cutting and reaming is completed and without removal of the reamer from the intermedullary canal. This insures that cutting instrumentation will be properly oriented with regard to the hole that is cut and reamed to prepare the intermedullary canal.

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First Claim