Pain in knees and hips is increasingly common after crossing 50s or 60s. This is most commonly because of ‘Osteoarthritis’, which in simple terms means, the protective cushion in these joints wears out after years of walking, just like the trades of the tires on a car wear out after driving 50,000 miles. When this cushion (known as ‘articular cartilage’) is largely gone, the only effective and lasting solution to relieve the ongoing pain is to replace it with a ‘metal and plastic’ implant; just as you would need to change the tire on your car when its worn out. This procedure is commonly known as ‘joint replacement’. This is one of the most successful operations of 20th century, but unfortunately even it fails to relieve the pain in some patients. The failure is most commonly due to wearing out of this newly inserted plastic cushion and/or loosening of the implants with time. This happens faster if the joint is not aligned and balanced perfectly, just like a car tire that is poorly aligned or un-balanced wears out faster. Therefore, accurate alignment and balancing of the artificial joint is crucial for its long-term success. Traditionally the alignment and balancing of the artificial joint during joint replacement surgery is done by the surgeon manually, just by “eyeballing” mechanical jigs. This works most times, but unfortunately not every single time. This means that in those patients in whom there was error in this ‘manual alignment or balancing’, the new joint will most likely fail and their pain will return necessitating an expensive, much larger revision surgery with prolonged painful rehabilitation. Until a few years ago, even the car wheel alignment and balancing were done by a car mechanic by just eyeballing, but now they use a computerized machine to do it, so that it is accurate and consistent every single time. Similar technology using computers is now available to the Orthopedic surgeons so that they can plan to give PERFECT alignment and balance to every single patient, not just 7 or 8 out of 10, to give the best result to every single patient.

Additionally, with this new technology, the surgeon can do the surgery virtually on the computer and see the result in advance, before cutting the patient’s bones. If the result is suboptimal, the surgeon can change the implant size as well as its position in the computer model and select the one that will give the best result to the patient, and then proceed with the actual surgery. This ‘rehearsal’ is obviously not possible when performing the surgery with traditional manual technique.

Robotic surgery takes this technology a step further. It is of no use if the surgeon perfectly plans the operation with the help of the computer but fails to execute the plan in the operating room, which is possible when the bone cuts are made manually with human hands. Even one millimeter of human error in making the precise bone cuts can potentially result in failure of the operation. Using a robot to make the bone cuts exactly as planned by the computer, takes this ‘human error’ out of the equation and the bone cuts are made perfect and precise almost every single time giving the BEST RESULT TO EVERY SINGLE PATIENT which can potentially increase the life span of the implant, improve its function and reduce pain as well as rehabilitation period.

This requires over a million-dollar investment in purchasing the Robot, as well as a CT scan before the operation. Both these mean extra cost to the hospital. The surgeon also must spend extra time and effort in planning and rehearsing the procedure on the computer, without getting any additional monitory compensation. However, the patient receives this EXTRA BENEFIT WITHOUT ANY EXTRA COST! I am happy to inform you that this technology of Robotic Hip and Knee replacement, which is likely to become standard of care in future, Dr. Avinash Jadhav Robotic Joint Replacement: Futuristic Technology Now Available in Brooksville is already available now at the Bravera Hospital Brooksville.

For inquiries, please call: Avinash Jadhav MD, FAAOS, FRCS, MCh, MS, DNB; Specialized in ‘Robotic’ Hip and Knee Replacement at Orthopedic Specialist MD, 17222 Hospital Blvd, Ste 322 Brooksville FL 34601 Tel: 352-565-5999