potential to make knee replacements even more suitable for same-day
surgery. "If surgeons are stripping less muscle away to replace a joint,
that could lead to faster recoveries and contribute to enabling outpa-
tient surgery," says Dr. Suk.
But there are plenty of facilities that have not invested the approxi-
mately $1 million needed to add a technology that clinical research
hasn't definitively proven to improve outcomes. To be fair, long-term
data on how patients fare won't be available until several decades
from now.
"Does robotics improve outcomes, or does it simply make post-op
X-rays look better?" asks Dr. Fillingham. "That's what we have to find
out."
Dr. Suk says surgeons who claim they don't need robots are likely
thinking about their best-case scenario: younger, active patients with
low BMIs who are motivated to do well after surgery. "You don't need
a robot for those surgeries, but that's a small subset of patients," he
says. "What about the patient with a BMI of 50 and severe joint defor-
mity? If surgeons thought about replacing joints on those patients, I
find it hard to believe they would think the technology wouldn't be
useful."
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