MD, the co-director of the arthritis and joint replacement program at
the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in
Madison, Wis. "Robotics can help bridge that gap. The biggest chal-
lenge moving forward will be convincing surgeons that the technology
offers significant improvement to the outcomes they achieve with
manual surgery using ocular navigation."
Room for error
A robotic arm is a marketable technology that can differentiate your
facility from the competition that's jockeying to capitalize on the sky-
rocketing demand for knee replacements, which is expected to jump
by 700% over the next 30 years.
Surgeons who perform conventional knee replacements grab jigs,
cutting guides and saws to place as-precise-as-possible cuts in the
tibia and femur where implant components are placed to hopefully
restore the joint's natural alignment and balance.
"But there's plenty of room for human error in placing the jigs and
cutting guides, and in making accurate cuts," says Kim Stearns, MD,
an orthopedic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
Misaligning of the implant by only a degree or two can make a sig-
nificant difference in the joint's post-op function. Dr. Illgen says 10%
to 20% of knee replacement patients are dissatisfied with their new
joints a year or two after undergoing surgery. "The implants are
durable, but patients don't like how the knee feels," says Dr. Illgen.
"Patient satisfaction is a big problem with total knees, and some of
that is related to the technical difficulty of the surgery and improper
implant placement."
That's where robotic assistance provides benefit. The technology
guides the surgeon to make exact cuts based on anatomical images
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