Robotic Knee Surgery
Robotic assisted surgery is cutting edge technology that has changed the way Orthopaedic surgeons perform knee replacements.
The MAKO was the first robot introduced into the orthopaedic surgical field and has more than 15 years of scientific data behind it, proving its safety and efficacy. The first MAKO robotic knee replacement was performed in Australia in 2017.
Dr Balendra has been performing Robotic knee replacements since 2019, and has been utilising robots successfully to improve the accuracy and outcomes of his knee replacements. Be reassured that your surgeon will always be in control of the robot. The use of robots means that the tissue around the knee needs be the stretched less at the time of surgery, which means less pain and swelling after the operation and a quicker recovery.
Robotic Knee surgery starts with a personalised surgical plan. Prior to surgery a CT scan is obtained of your arthritic knee, which is then used to generate a virtual knee replacement using the MAKO software. This is an incredibly powerful tool as it allows Dr Balendra to plan the surgery based on each patient’s own unique anatomy, deformity and limb alignment.
At the time of surgery, special trackers are used so that the information from the CT scan is matched to the shape of the actual bone. This enables the MAKO robot to cut the bone to millimetre precision, increasing the accuracy of the operation. Once the bony cuts have been made, the total knee replacements implants are inserted as normal.
Additionally, the MAKO robot has in built “haptic boundaries” which adds an extra layer of safety, so that only the bone that Dr Balendra wants to remove is cut by the robot. The “haptic boundaries” are demonstrated by the yellow line around the bone in the image to the right. This prevents damage to other structures around the knee, with only the bone being cut, which results in less swelling after the operation.
To learn more about robotic knee surgery, please click here.
