Rochester Regional Health has begun using robots to assist with some knee replacement surgeries.
Dr. Matthew Landfried is chief of orthopedics at United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia, where the health care system’s first robot-assisted total knee replacement happened last week. He said knee replacement is one of the most common bone and muscle surgeries performed at Rochester Regional. More than 700,000 of the surgeries are performed each year in the U.S.
“Everybody was excited here. I was excited,” Landfried said.
Hospital staff want to see the new machine in action, he said, but COVID-19 restrictions force him to limit the number of people in the operating room.
The robot has a long, multi-jointed arm that guides surgeons to make their cuts. Landfried said that precision will help patients recover faster and more comfortably.
“There’s much less bleeding and less pain post-operatively, so patients feel more stable and are up and progressing along quite a bit quicker,” he said.
Still, the robot does not replace humans in the operating room. Landfried said trained surgeons are still the ones to operate on the joint. The robot only assists.
“It brings in the cutting guides and places them in the appropriate spot. The surgeon still has to make the incision, make the exposure, and actually does the cuts with the saw,” he said. “Robot-assisted, not robot-replaced.”
Robot-assisted surgery carries the same risks as the traditional procedure, Landfried said. Research indicates more data is needed to build a clear picture of the long-term results of knee replacements assisted by robots.
