Sunway Medical Centre, Sunway City Spearheads Robotic Partial Knee Replacement Surgery in Southeast Asia
06 July 2023
Sunway Medical Centre, Sunway City (SMC) became the first Southeast Asian hospital to run a robotic partial knee replacement surgery using the ROSA Robotic System with its first surgery successfully performed on May 31, 2023.
The private hospital in Sunway City, Selangor, is familiar with using robotics technology for patient treatment as it has treated over 550 patients in the past three years for surgeries involving total knee replacement, total hip replacement and partial knee replacement.
In fact, SMC had initiated a total hip replacement with Mako SmartRobotics in Malaysia. It was also the first hospital to acquire both Mako SmartRobotics and ROSA Knee System machines in the country.
Dr Suhail Suresh, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at SMC since 2009, says the robotic knee operations under his account had a 100% success rate with zero mishaps.
“That’s a testimony to the fact that we are used to the system and can deliver good results. We’re not just starting out on robotic surgery and we have experienced surgeons doing it,” he says.
Suhail himself has performed knee replacements for over 20 years. His initial years involved manual replacements before he embarked on computer-aided replacements in 2005, and now robotic surgeries.
As an expert, he confidently assures that robotic-assisted surgeries brought in finer results, providing better alignment, improved placement, less blood loss and reduced soft tissue damage in patients.
“With its precision, the quicker recovery of robotic knee replacement surgeries led to patients’ hospital stays likely shortened by half,” Suhail attests.
On average, patients typically get discharged from the hospital within seven days after their knee replacement surgeries, depending on their health. However, Suhail has observed patients who underwent total knee replacement robotic surgery being discharged in just three days.
“For patients under partial knee replacement robotics treatment, they can even go back as soon as the day after the surgery,” he says.
While a manual surgery could require revisions for the knee implants within 15 to 20 years, he says that research showed robotic-assisted replacement surgeries had far lower revision rates, which meant extending the longevity of the successful treatment.
The ROSA Knee System used in SMC incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, with the former making up a big portion of the system.
In a walk-through of the process, he says patients who require a robotic knee replacement will first be given a consultation before an X-ray procedure for diagnosis.
The X-ray is conducted with software calibration, which makes precise marking points on the patient’s bone and provides technical measurements to allow surgeons to calibrate the patient’s size and alignment.
While the ROSA Robotic System has helped improve the effectiveness of a doctor’s practice in knee operations, Suhail says doctors are still principally in the driver’s seat of the surgery.
“As a surgeon, I will run through the plan suggested by the system and see if this suits my patient. If I want any positions changed, I can always overwrite the system, as I am in control of it,” he explains.
Adopting robotics technology in knee operations is vital, as according to Suhail, statistics have shown that 30.5% of people aged 50 and above within Greater Kuala Lumpur suffer from osteoarthritis.
Partial knee replacement surgery, an alternative to total knee replacement surgery for osteoarthritis knees with damage that involves one or two components of medial, lateral or patellofemoral compartments, brings great value, especially for young osteoarthritis patients and osteoarthritis patients with early diagnosis.
However, it is estimated that only one in ten patients will undergo a partial knee replacement surgery as most cases are not diagnosed early and have shown signs of late representation. Therefore, SMC’s investment in robotic technology is truly a game changer for partial knee replacement surgery.
Source: The Edge
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