- Ribera is committed to innovation in traumatology with the acquisition of a robot that allows personalized surgeries with greater precision
- No other hospital in the province of Alicante has this technology for Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology, which is performed in few centers in Spain.
- This program manages to digitally reconstruct the patient's knee to provide the surgical team with real-time information about the patient's anatomy.
El Vinalopó University Hospital, managed by the health group Ribera, has incorporated robotic surgery into the Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology service to implant knee prostheses more precisely, reducing tissue damage. It is the first center in the province of Alicante to develop this technique in traumatology, which is carried out in few hospitals in Spain due to its high specialization. Ribera has opted for this technology that can verify in the same surgical procedure that the position of the implants is as perfect as possible. This advance leads to less postoperative pain for the patient, less surgical time, better recovery and greater durability of the implant.
The team of surgeons that carried out the first interventions, formed by doctors Paulino Sanchez, Emilio Bascuñana and David Fernández, from the Joint Reconstructive Surgery Unit of the Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology Service, ensures that the application of this technology provides a great leap in quality in the implantation of knee prostheses, since the precision in the placement of the implant is directly related to better mobility, less pain and greater durability. “The robot's assistance provides us with real-time information to improve the precision of our gestures during surgery,” says Dr. Sánchez.
Surgery assisted with robotic technology, and widely developed in recent years, represents a turning point in orthopedic and prosthetic surgery as we know it today, and has become one of the greatest advances in this field of surgery and medicine of our country.
Innovative technique
This new technique is based on intraoperative navigation technology widely applied in other specialties such as neurosurgery, in this case, using specific software for knee prosthesis implants. This program manages to digitally reconstruct the patient's knee to provide the surgical team with real-time information about the patient's anatomy and allows exact planning of the model, size and position of the final implant, all digitally as the intervention is carried out, avoiding thus having to perform the different implant adjustment tests that are carried out in traditional techniques. It also allows high-precision automated bone resections to be carried out, which minimizes any possible variation between what was planned and the final placement of the real implant.
Early recovery and greater durability
Thanks to this technique, patients who have undergone knee prosthesis assisted by robotic navigation at the Vinalopó University Hospital have walked with aids on the same day of the intervention, thus greatly shortening the recovery period. What's more, all of them have been discharged from the hospital without complications within 24 hours. “Reducing tissue damage during surgery is key to avoiding bleeding, pain and making the patient's recovery much faster and more pleasant, and patients notice this,” explains Dr. Bascuñana.
The three-dimensional reconstruction technology used by the robotic navigation system helps reduce tissue injuries by allowing only the necessary surgical gestures to be performed and avoiding most of the intermediate steps that conventional techniques have for implant selection and position.
With this system you can know in advance what the best position will be and carry out digital dynamic tests to assess what its future behavior will be like. All of this results in the final implant being placed in the best possible position for its most precise operation, which extends the durability of the prosthesis and thus patient satisfaction. “Robot navigation has given us more information and more precision during surgery. Now we can put completely personalized prostheses for each patient,” explained Dr. Fernández.
Custom prosthetics
The planning of this cutting-edge system goes beyond current systems since it not only provides precision to the surgeon, but also allows planning the final implant based on the type and shape of bone that the patient has, as well as being able to assess the tension of the knee ligaments, a fact that until now had not been possible to evaluate with other planning systems. This allows greater personalization of the surgery since the implant can be adjusted to the bone perfectly, as well as perfectly keeping the ligamentous anatomy of the patient undamaged, thus ensuring that the operation of the implant is truly balanced, providing greater stability and less discomfort.
