March SAGES conference in Houston. It takes some time to get used
to, she says, but it allows for suturing with a flexible tip at an angle
that's "better than with the chopsticks that we use for laparoscopy
now," she says.
The great value of robots, she adds, is that they provide the ability to
"act like an open surgeon inside the belly with minimally invasive access."
The only concern? It's not quite as stable at the tip as you'd like, says
Dr. Towfigh.
Robotic-arm assisted technology
When Tom Antkowiak, MD, MS, first saw robotic-arm assisted sys-
tems come into play, he was hesitant, unsure whether they were "a
game-changer or a gimmick," he says. Now, having used them reliably,
he says they have made him more comfortable doing unicompartmen-
tal knee arthroplasty (UKA) procedures in an outpatient setting.
"We started to see a difference in immediate patient outcomes, from
doing unis the standard way versus using the robot," says Dr.
Antkowiak, an orthopedic surgeon with the Midwest Institute for
Robotic Surgery at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox, Ill. The differ-
ences for patients were apparent in almost every measurable catego-
ry: less pain, improved motion, fewer (or no) ligamentous injuries, the
ability to walk without an assistive device and higher satisfaction
scores.
"Pretty quickly I became a believer in the technology," he says.
Dr. Antkowiak still does some UKA procedures "the old way," though
the majority of them use the robotic-arm assisted system — and "85% to
95%" of those patients go home the same day. He has access to 2 different
types: Mako from Stryker; and Navio from Smith & Nephew (see "What's
Hot in Orthopedics" on page 51). One key difference between the two, as
he sees it, is that Stryker's Mako requires a pre-op CT scan to do the mod-
eling, while Smith & Nephew's Navio uses an optical probe as a means of
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