Chamdo, Tibet - On May 4, 2023, Professor Wei Huang, Director of Orthopedics Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University (the First Affiliated Hospital of CMU), and his surgical team successfully completed the first Chinese-developed robot-assisted artificial joint replacement surgery for Silang Dengzhu in Eastern Tibet at the People's Hospital of Chamdo in the Tibet Autonomous Region using MicroPort^® Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot (MicroPort^® Honghu). It was also the first 5G-based remote Chinese-developed robot-assisted total knee replacement surgery in Tibet. Chongqing has been strengthening its medical aid in Tibet in recent years, which has provided great convenience to improve the medical level and access to medical care for the masses in Chamdo. It has been the sixth time in five years since the team prepared to start the "Chongqing-Tibet Love, Stand Up Action" medical aid in Tibet in 2019. Professor Wei Huang led the team into Chamdo, Xizang again this time, and introduced there the world's advanced Honghu orthopedic robot-assisted joint replacement protocol.

The same special operation in Tibet but a new surgical experience

Silang Dengzhu, 64, came from Lhorong County of Chamdo, with an average altitude of more than 3,200 m, which was once the hardest-hit area of the "Kashin-Beck disease" that the CPC Central Committee named as needing to be eliminated. Long-term farming and heavy physical labor gradually caused irreversible deformities in his knee joints, and poverty caused by the disease brought him great physical and psychological torture, making him think that "I probably won't be able to walk normally in my life" and he could only spend the rest of his life in bed. Fortunately, Professor Wei Huang's team came to Chamdo for "Chongqing-Tibet Love, Stand Up Action" medical aid, bringing hope for those suffering Kashin-Beck disease such as Silang Dengzhu to return to normal life.

Patients with joint replacement can get out of bed 3 hours and basically restore their joint function six months after surgery; patients with hip replacement can fully squat with a recovery rate of 100%. It is the answer sheet that the orthopedic aid team of the First Affiliated Hospital of CMU has given to the Tibetan people of Chamdo and the Party Central Committee in the past 4 years, but not the ultimate purpose of the team. "How to help the people in the snowy plateau also get more minimally invasive, smarter and digitalized surgical treatments," is what Director Wei Huang has always been concerned about. When he set foot in Chamdo, the "Pearl of Eastern Tibet", for the 6th time on May 3, 2023, he brought with him the first and only Chinese-developed surgical robot in China that has been certified by the NMPA, FDA, CE, and ANVISA: MicroPort^® Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot. On the morning of the 4th, Professor Wei Huang led the surgical team from the First Affiliated Hospital of CMU and completed the Chinese-developed robot-assisted artificial joint replacement surgery for Silang Dengzhu using MicroPort^® Honghu. The entire procedure lasted 60 minutes, where precise intraoperative skeletal manipulation was performed based on precise preoperative planning to achieve medial and lateral knee joint and flexion-extension gap balance and precise personalized lower limb force line reconstruction. The patient's postoperative functional recovery indicators reached the international advanced level, which set a benchmark for the application of surgical robots in the snowy plateau. In the afternoon of the day of surgery, Silang Dengzhu could walk with a walker under the guidance of the surgeon, and he thumbed up for the Chongqing team while making those in the same ward waiting for surgery envious and demanding for an early operation.

Duoji Zeren, deputy chief physician of the Department of Surgery II of the People's Hospital of Chamdo, said that in the past, joint replacement surgery was almost blank in the local area, but now it is already possible to carry out treatment for Kashin-Beck disease of the knee or hip joint on a regular basis. The determined implementation of the "Stand Up Action" has helped a growing number of compatriots on the snowy plateau to regain a better quality of life.