Computer to lead way in hip replacement

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will become the first hospital in the country to perform computer assisted hip joint replacement on Saturday.

 The new technology will help patients in more accurate hip replacement with nominal extra charges.

“The surgery will be performed by the surgeon. The computer will assist in ensuring accuracy of the plan of surgery. It also reduces outliers.

 The number of surgeries with hip being put in wrong angle would come down. As the cut on the body will be very small, patient will take less time to recover,” said Dr  Rajesh Malhotra, professor, department of orthopaedics, AIIMS. 

So far, in hip replacements, doctors needed a bigger cut on the patient’s body for wider view for accurate placement to the implant.

The new technique, computer assisted ‘navigation’ in joint replacement of hips will be a minimally invasive surgery with cut size of 10 cm or less. The procedure ensures increased longevity of joint replacement.

“The computer navigates the movements of the surgeon. A patient is first registered with the computer and the plan for the surgery is fed. With the help of trackers, computer ensures that everything goes according to the fed plan,” said Dr Malhotra.  

“It shows green till movements of the doctor are all right. It shows red when the direction goes wrong, and yellow if the pre-decided direction is close,” he said.

Trackers cost Rs 6,000, which will be an additional cost for the patients due to the new technique. Cost for hip transplant ranges from Rs 20,000 to Rs 3 lakh. 

The first surgery will be performed on Saturday as part of Asia’s first ever “cadaveric computer assisted hip replacement workshop.” 

AIIMS has one machine which has been in use for knee and spine replacements. Now it will be used in hip replacement too.

The orthopaedic department of AIIMS conducts 50-70 surgeries a month which will be reduced to 30-50 after introduction of the new technique.

Prof Hartmuth Kiefer, head, trauma and reconstructive surgery, Lukas Hospital, Germany will demonstrate computer assisted total hip replacement. He has performed nearly 3,700 surgeries in the last 10 years.

“This is part of the learning curve. A doctor takes more time while learning a new procedure. But this will be covered soon,” added Dr Malhotra.