Madison Memorial Hospital utilizing new knee replacement surgical system
Published at | Updated at
REXBURG — Orthopedic surgeons at Madison Memorial Hospital can better personalize a knee replacement with new surgical assisting robotics.
“The NAVIO allows us to customize the components to the patient’s anatomy,” Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Matheau Eysser says.
The hospital started using the technology late last year to improve care for surgical patients. Eysser says prior to the NAVIO Surgical System, surgeons had to generalize a prosthesis or implant to fit a patients femur and tibia. In the past, procedures have relied on manual guides, external pins and cutting jigs to remove damaged bone and place a prosthetic implant.
“However with this NAVIO we can map out their femur and tibia while we’re in surgery and then we can customize and critique where we want to put the implants during surgery,” Eysser says.
This new technology doesn’t replace the surgeon, as they’re controlling the robotic piece, but it does help the surgeon better plan and have more accuracy and precision during the procedure.
According to the medical manufacturer’s site, the NAVIO eliminates the need for a CT scan prior to surgery. While CT scans are helpful in mapping out knee anatomy it can expose a patient to potentially harmful radiation. One CT scan is comparable to 48 chest X-rays.
The site adds The NAVIO system uses an advanced computer program to gather anatomic alignment information about the knee. That information is transformed into a 3D rendering of the patient’s knee that the surgeon uses in surgery planning.
Eysser says the NAVIO does add some time to knee replacement surgeries, but since the customized prosthesis is aligned more accurately, it increases the lifespan of the implant.
“A lot of patients have commentated, they’ve had one knee done the traditional way without the robot, then with the robotic-assisted total knee,” Eysser says. “They’ve noticed a difference that it feels more natural because it fits their anatomy and it’s more stable.”
Eysser was trained during his fellowship in Phoenix, Arizona where he performed a number of robotic surgeries. He trained with one of the developers of the NAVIO prior to his work at Madison Memorial Orthopedics. He says he’s been looking forward to the hospital attaining this technology.
“I can still do a muscle sparing approach where I leave the quadriceps and the muscles intact but then I can use the robotic-assisted total knee to get it even more precise,” Eysser says.