Belle Vue Clinic has started conducting robotic surgeries for joint replacements that are more precise than the conventional ones and also help in faster recovery, a doctor of the hospital said.
The surgeries include knee and hip replacements.
The clinic has already done about 15 surgeries since May.
In robotic surgeries, the skin and muscle incisions are fewer and as a result, there is less blood loss. The bone measurement is done by the robot.
In conventional surgery, doctors have to cut the bones with a hand-held saw so that the implant can fit into the bone. It could lead to errors in measurement. But the robot can cut the bone to a precision of less than a milimetre, said Santosh Kumar, who heads the active automatic robotic joint replacement unit at Belle Vue.
Robotic surgery also allows simulated surgery. Doctors can see on a screen and decide if the bone, where the implant will be placed, needs to be cut more than already decided upon and other things so that the actual surgery is more precise. “In conventional surgery, we had to take such decisions after cutting open the skin and muscle,” said Kumar.
The robot will perform the pre-operative arrangements while the actual placing of the implant will be done by the surgeon. “The bone has to be cut to the precise size so that the implant fits into it,” Kumar added.
The better placement of the implant also helps in extending the implant’s longevity.
The robot gives a 3D image of the bone before the surgery that will also help doctors to plan a surgery better. A conventional replacement surgery was done based on X-rays, Kumar said.
