Computer-aided surgery for knee replacement gains momentum

Chennai, July 2 (UNI) Computer-aided knee replacement surgery has started gaining momentum as it was more accurate and errors could be avoided, an expert has said.

Dr Vijay C Bose, Senior consultant-orthopaedics and Traumatology Apollo Speciality Hospitals here said the imported computer navigation equipment, costing around Rs 1.5 crore, was available in three places in South India, including the one with them.

Dr Bose, who specialises in key-hole surgeries, said osteoarthritis, the most common type of knee arthritis, affected the knee joints as the protective lining called the cartilage began to wear out exposing the bone under the cartilage and causing pain.

It usually affected people over 50 years. It was more common in people who were overweight and sometimes it was in the family.

The common signs of arthritis in the knee were pain with activities like walking, standing, climbing stairs, sitting cross-legged or getting up from sitting position, stiffness or tightness in the knee and difficulty in folding or straightening the knee, swelling around the knee, sensation of giving away or buckling of the knee and deformity of the joint, he added.

Apart from several types of knee surgery available at present -- key-hole (Arthroscopic) surgery, knee osteotomy, partial knee replacement and total knee replacement, Computer aided surgery is also an option.

To a question, he said so far he had perfomed about 70 surgeries using the computer navigation and achieved cent per cent success.

This is in addition to about 75 key-hole surgeries in the last few months.

He also claimed the computer navigation knee replacement surgery needed only four to five days hospitalisation for the patients and it was very easy for both the surgeon as well the patients.

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