Zhaotong, Yunnan --- Two cases of robot-assisted TKA were successfully completed in the First People's Hospital of Zhaotong by the team led by Chunji Zhu, director of Orthopedics Department II of the First People's Hospital of Zhaotong and Professor Chuan Li of No. 920 Hospital. The operations are performed with Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot ("Honghu") independently developed by MicroPort NaviBot（Suzhou）Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co., Ltd. The first People's Hospital of Zhaotong has developed into the largest and only national 3A general hospital in Zhaotong, which has integrated the medical treatment, first aid, prevention, health care, rehabilitation, scientific research and teaching. It undertakes the tasks of medical treatment, rehabilitation and health care for more than 6 million people in Zhaotong and its neighboring areas of Sichuan and Guizhou. With the successful completion of the surgery, MicroPort^®MedBot^® has achieved the hope of accessing the high-quality medical resources -- inclusive smart medical care -- to different levels of medical institutions, and improving the medical services in the regional and remote areas, and making Surgery Easier, Safer and Less Invasive.

The two patients were: the 56-year-old female with pain in her left knee and limited activities for more than 30 years, and aggravated pain in her right knee for more than one year and the 64-year-old male with degenerative osteoarthropathy of right knee joint, synovial chondroma of right suprapatellar capsule, old injury and hyperplasia of right patella, subluxation of right patellar joint.

After careful evaluation and confirmation of the preoperative plan, the surgical team finally adopted the orthopedic surgical robot to assist in the TKA. With the powerful 3D preoperative planning function of Honghu, the patients’ knee joints were segmented and reconstructed in the form of 3D CT images before operation to provide a personalized prosthesis implantation operation plan. The human-computer interactive surgical platform of Honghu (Honghu HCI Platform) guided the robotic arm registration and bone registration nimbly during the surgery, the robotic arms accurately moved to the preplanned position, assisted Director Chunji Zhu in the osteotomy of femur and tibia. Compatible with the MicroPort^®Orthopedics medial-pivot knee system, the whole operation was completed smoothly and efficiently.

Postoperative measurement shows that the actual osteotomy is completely consistent with the planned value. The patient recovered fast after the operation, and the full-length radiograph of the lower limb showed that the force line had been accurately recovered, which proved the precise characteristics of Honghu. Honghu is provided with the Chinese-developed robotic arm, which can resect bones through precise operation. It is unnecessary to open the femoral canal during the surgery. The patient suffered less bleeding and less trauma.

Chunji Zhu, director of Orthopedics Department II, said: "the robot-assisted TKA is a new technology for treating knee joint diseases. It can effectively eradicate the late knee joint pain, improve the knee joint mobility and the quality of life of patients. The operating interface of surgery robot is very user-friendly. It respects the doctors' traditional surgical habits and shortens the learning curve. Compared with the traditional surgery, the 3D preoperative planning function of robot is powerful, allowing doctors to collect more patient information during surgery and implant the prostheses in a more reasonable position. Meanwhile, it is unnecessary to open the femoral canal in a robot-assisted surgery, and the patient suffered less bleeding and less trauma. The osteotomy was completed accurately, and the lower limb line of patients restored satisfactorily.”