Partial knee resurfacing -a breakthrough treatment

MAKOplasty is a robotic arm assisted partial knee resurfacing procedure designed to relieve the pain caused by joint degeneration due to osteoarthritis (OA). By selectively targeting the part of knee damaged by OA, a surgeon can resurface the knee while sparing the healthy bone and ligaments surrounding it.

MAKOplasty partial knee resurfacing can:

* Enable surgeons to precisely resurface only the arthritic portion of the knee

* Preserve healthy tissue and bone

* Facilitate optimal implant positioning to result in a more natural feeling knee following surgery

* Result in a more rapid recovery and shorter hospital stay than traditional total knee replacement surgery

The MAKOplasty procedure is indicated for patients suffering from unicompartmental or bicompart-mental knee disease. A total replacement is sometimes necessary if a surgeon discovers during surgery that the knee has more damage than originally seen in the pre-operative X-rays and CT scan.

Dr. Jeffrey Chew, Senior Consultant, Orthopaedic Surgery at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Singapore has recently shared his views with Star Health about this advance state-of-the-art technique. He said that the basic difference between MAKOplasty and total knee replacement is the repair of damage according to the need. When a partially damaged knee gets total knee replacement, the patient does not feel the same natural restoration of movement which in fact results in a discomfort to some extent.

In MAKOplasty, the surgeon-controlled RIO® Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopedic System is indicated for partial knee (it also can perform total hip replacement). It features proprietary tactile robotic arm technology with integrated, intelligent surgical instruments, and a high-definition patient-specific visualisation system to pre-plan and treat each patient uniquely and with consistently reproducible precision.

RIO® provides the surgeon with real-time visual, tactile and auditory feedback to optimise implant positioning and placement and to restore bio-mechanical alignment and joint motion. It assists the surgeon in achieving optimal results at a level of accuracy previously unattainable with conventional instrumentation.

MAKOplasty partial knee resurfacing is an innovative treatment option for adults living with early-to mid-stage osteoarthritis (OA) that has not progressed to all three compartments of the knee.

As RIO® Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopedic System allows the surgeon to perform surgery precisely through a smaller incision as compared to total knee replacement with better outcome in comparatively lower cost, it be being more popular day by day for resurfacing the knee while sparing the healthy bone and ligaments surrounding it.

E-mail: tareq.salahuddin @thedailystar.net