Beijing, China - From March 20, under the theme of "Skillful in Osteology | Ingenuity Leading the Way", the live surgery month of the Department of Medicine of 301 Hospital was officially started, with nearly 10 domestic and overseas Orthopedic robotic products competing on the same stage, each with its own strengths. Many famous Orthopedic experts from all over the country were invited to participate in the activity and watch the comments online, with an average of over 50,000 viewers per day, which is considered a heated academic event in the field of orthopedic surgical robots in China. 

On March 21, Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot of Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "MicroPort^® MedBot^® Group") appeared in this surgery week and successfully completed a complex and difficult TKA, which was performed by Director Haifeng Li, a member of the team of Director Wei Chai of 301 Hospital. Relying on the strong, stable planning, navigation and registration ability of Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot and the surgeon's accurate, efficient surgical judgment and operation ability, the osteotomy was accurately carried out and the prosthetic installation was completed. The risk and complexity of this surgery was very high, and the Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot rose to the challenge, broke through the siege, and successfully overcame the challenge, which is a strong proof that the domestic self-developed surgical robot is a pioneer and showed the robot's technical strength is not second to overseas competitors.

Patient introduction: The patient was obese and suffered a severe fracture in the middle of the femur one year ago. The doctor installed an intramedullary rod in the femoral bone marrow cavity for fixation. This year, the patient experienced more painful walking and daily life was hindered. The knee joint was found to be severely worn, so surgery was performed.

Condition analysis: The difficulty of this surgery lies in the fact that there was a metal intramedullary rod in the patient's bones, and the CT slice image showed serious artifacts. The patient's bone outline is blur in many CT slice images, posing a great challenge to the 3D reconstruction function of the preoperative planning software of Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot. However, it is currently an insurmountable obstacle for orthopedic surgical robots based on CT images in the industry, and many orthopedic robots lack solutions and surgical experience in the face of similar problems.

During the patient's medical treatment, the doctor had planned to use the world's leading overseas orthopedic robot for surgery, but the engineer of the robot company declined and gave clear, sufficient reason. Namely, CT images with such severe artifacts cannot generate accurate modeling, and without accurate modeling guidance, it is difficult for surgical robots to perform accurate surgery. Moreover, due to the obstruction of the distal end of the internal fixation, the prosthesis supporting the robot cannot be installed at all, so it is impossible to complete the surgery.

Surgical plan: The huge challenges and the unknown did not stop the orthopedic experts of 301 Hospital and Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot. Director Haifeng Li, a member of the team of Director Wei Chai of 301 Hospital, decided to accept the patient and make a thorough, scientific plan with the team of Honghu Robot. After discussion, Director Haifeng Li believed that only by grinding off the distal 3mm intramedullary rod during the surgery could satisfactory postoperative results be achieved.

Under this circumstance, in addition to preparing tools in advance, the operation time was extended and the difficulty of the operation was increased.

Surgical procedure: On March 21, the surgery was carried out as planned. To ensure nothing goes wrong, Director Wei Chai and Director Haifeng Li repeatedly discussed the surgical plan and confirmed the operation details of the intraoperative bone registration 1 hour before the surgery. According to the precise guidance and assistance of the engineer, the accuracy error of bone registration collection was controlled within 0.5mm, and the performance of the Honghu Robot was truly remarkable.

Before the osteotomy, in line with the principle of maximizing the benefit to patients, Director Haifeng Li required the use of gap assessment, the switch of prosthesis size, and the adjustment of optimal osteotomy parameters to obtain the final osteotomy plan for patients. With the assistance of Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot, the osteotomy was finally completed successfully by efficiently adjusting the prosthesis and the osteotomy parameters. Both the surgeon and the patient expressed great satisfaction with the surgical result.

For this exceptionally complex orthopedic robotic surgery, even the slightest errors, during 3D model creation, registration and bone grinding could result in a suboptimal outcome and perpetuate the physical pain of walking for the patient. This undoubtedly challenges the surgeon's intraoperative evaluation ability, surgical experience and on-the-spot judgment, and is also a test of the systematic operation capability and accuracy of Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot in complex surgeries. Of course, it also puts forward high standard and strict requirement on the unity and cooperation ability of all departments such as customer service, sales, clinical application, clinical training and R&D technology of Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot team.

According to the postoperative X-ray, the angle error between the preoperative planning and the actual postoperative angle was almost zero. Postoperative flexion and extension motion was significantly improved, and the patient recovered faster and walked earlier than undergoing traditional surgery. The successful completion of this surgery is also a double confirmation of the superb skills of surgeons and the stable, excellent functions of domestic Honghu robot products.

1 The registered trademark of HongHu is named “Skywalker” in abroad , which is in the process of application in USA, completed registration in EU and other countries and regions.