Computer navigated joint replacement surgery at Fortis Hospital

Computer navigated joint replacement surgery in Tri-City

Chandigarh, August 18 ( ).

Patients having undergone computer navigated joint-replacement surgery can walk unaided just after three weeks of surgery. Dr Harsimran Singh, (MS, MCH-Ortho) of Fortis Hospital, Mohali and the founder of Orthopilot Navigation center at hospital revealed this while addressing a press conference today.

A trained orthopilot navigation surgeon from Sydney, Australia, Dr Harsimran added that the innovative technique has not only revolutionized joint-replacement surgeries, but have also decreased rehabilitation period of patient.

Post surgery a patient is easily able to walk with in 48 hours with the help of a walker, can climb stairs at two weeks, walk without walker or any stick as early as three weeks and can return to the previous job in four weeks. Even blood loss during surgery is significantly reduced.

He added that knee surgery entails two basic steps including bone cuts and ligament balancing. In conventional joint replacement surgery, surgeons rely on alignment rods to place bone-cutting blocks. The surgeons have to align them visually and hence it leaves larger scope of human error.

“Something that looks like 90 degrees to me can actually be anything between 85 to 95 degrees. As a result, implant remains misaligned to some extent. It can be responsible for residual pain after surgery, prolonged recovery time and early failure of prosthesis,” he added.

On the other hand, a computer assisted knee surgery uses computer software program to calculate angles of knee. Small infrared markers are placed on leg and thighbones and these are picked up by infrared camera attached to a computer. This enables surgeon to place cutting blocks and balance ligaments at an accuracy and precision of tune of 0.1mm variation, he said.

End result is recreation of knee alignment and balance exactly as in a native and healthy knee. This leads to faster recovery and better function. As accuracy level is very high, it also helps in increasing life of implants.

With advent of new technology and improvement in knee replacement product designs, a person undergoing knee replacement can look forward to comfortably fold his legs and sit cross-legged for nit name and pooja.