Kaiyuan, Yunnan —— The first robot-assisted TKA procedure has recently been completed in No. 920 Hospital of Honghe Prefecture with Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot (Honghu) independently developed by MicroPort NaviBot (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co., Ltd. (MedBot^®). Honghe Prefecture, located in the southwest border of China, is an important node of the national "Belt and Road Initiative" strategy and an important frontier for Yunnan to construct an economic development center radiating towards the South Asia and Southeast Asia. The No. 926 Hospital, as old as the People's Republic of China, is the only 3A hospital in the south and the southeast of Yunnan Province. It aims at the forefront of medicine in the 21^st century, makes great breakthrough with transplantation, minimal invasive surgery, interventional procedure, laparoscopy and other technologies as breakthrough, and fills up many medical gaps of Honghe Prefecture. It is one of the multi-center research teams of MedBot^® in Yunnan Province, where Wei Wang, deputy chief physician of Orthopaedics Department, cooperated with Professor Chuan Li of the No. 920 Hospital, and successfully completed the operation, promoting its development of intelligent robot procedure technology. Honghu can transform the traditional surgical experience into digital surgical planning, meet the urgent need of precise medical treatment and efficient utilization of medical resources faster, thus preventing the damage from intraoperative femoral canal opening and location.

The patient, a 57-year-old female, had suffered from bilateral knee joint pain for 3 years. The pain symptom on the right side was obviously aggravated in recent days and diagnosed as: bilateral knee osteoarthritis.

Before the operation, the orthopaedic team of the No. 926 Hospital worked out a careful surgical plan jointly with Professor Chuan Li, communicated patiently with the family members of patient, and finally decided to adopt Honghu to assist in the TKA, and made a personalized surgical solution by performing CT 3D reconstruction of knee joint for patients with Honghu. The human-computer interactive operation platform guided the robotic arm registration and bone registration nimbly during the procedure, the robotic arms accurately moved to the expected planned position, assisted Director Wei Wang in the osteotomy of femur and tibia, and compatible with MicroPort^®Orthopedics medial-pivot knee system, and the whole operation was completed smoothly and efficiently.

Postoperative measurement shows that the actual osteotomy is completely consistent with the planned value. The user-friendly operating interface of surgery robot respects the doctors' traditional surgical habits and has a short learning curve.

Director Wei Wang said: "TKA is a new technology for treating knee joint diseases. It can efficiently eradicate knee joint pain of the advanced stage, improve the knee joint mobility and the quality of life of patients. The user-friendly operating interface of surgery robot respects the doctors' traditional surgical habits and has a short learning curve. Compared with the traditional procedure, the 3D preoperative planning function of robot is powerful, allowing doctors to collect more patient information during procedure 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 force line of patients recovered satisfactorily.”