The unique trauma surgery system, operating in the Russian capital, is said to have no analogues in the world, and conducts the main portion of its work in automatic mode.
The Clinic of Traumatology, Orthopedics and Joint Pathology at the First Moscow State Medical University has completed trials of a custom-made traumatology robot, with the robot already completing 10 operations, with 25 more planned before the end of the year, and 200 more starting in 2020.
According to a Russian Ministry of Health press release, the robot, which specialises in knee replacement surgery, has shown a 100 percent success rate, with no complications.
The system consists of the robot itself, along with a work station used for preoperative planning. This procedure includes taking a computerised x-ray image (known in the medical community as computed tomography) of the affected limb. The system then analyses the image, measuring over 400 parameters. After that, the type, size and position of the prosthesis are selected using the virtual model of the patient’s bones, and a customised plan for surgery is created.
During the operation, after the patient is anaesthetised, the robot gains access to his or her knee joint via incision, creates a digital map of the patient’s joints, and proceeds to conduct the operation in automatic mode, without interference by doctors. Operations are said to require an average of about 17 minutes. After that, the system installs the components of the prosthesis on bone cement compound, and sutures the wound.
The robot is said to be unique, with all other robots of this kind in Russia and abroad only capable of assisting doctors, not carrying out the main portion of the procedure themselves.
The Health Ministry boasts that a major benefit of the system is its precision, which the Ministry says is unrivalled even by the most experienced surgeons conducting operations manually. The robot is said to carry out resections with an accuracy of 0.5 mm, and 0.5 degrees of the limb’s axis.
Doctors specialising in endoprosthetics work with the machine after undergoing specialised training. At present, three surgeons and two graduate students at First Moscow State Medical University have trained for operations using the robot.
According to the Health Ministry, the surgery system is undergoing continuous improvement, with its functionality expected to be expanded in the future to be able to carry out other types of joint prosthesis surgeries.
