Artificial knee joints based on the bone proportion of Chinese people were released in China's southwestern city of Chengdu on Wednesday.

Co-developed by a team of 21 experts from France and China's Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, the joints mean Chinese people now have their own standard-sized prostheses for a total knee replacement for the first time.

Artificial knee joints, domestic or imported, used to be produced according to the skeleton structure of Europeans, said Wang Yue, orthopedic doctor of the hospital.

"Westerners are generally larger than Chinese in terms of body size, which is why patients less than 1.4 meters (about 4.6 feet) tall in China cannot find appropriate artificial knees," Wang said.

The total knee replacement has been the most effective treatment for serious knee joint patients for more than 40 years worldwide.

Former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said at a press conference that the two countries would further cooperate on the development of artificial joints to meet the growing demand of Chinese people.