HPA Saúde performs the first robotic artificial knee surgery

The first artificial knee surgery was performed today at the Gambelas Unit of the HPA Saúde Group in Faro.

a HPA Health Group He owns a new robotic surgery in arthroplasty of the lower extremities, which allows to improve the surgical technique in the artificial knee joint and, in the future, in the artificial hip joint.

The user robot drives an intelligent infrared precision milling cutter. Surgeon-controlled, it reduces the possibility of error and assists with implant placement, resulting in almost complete reproduction of the patient’s original knee.

Knee and hip arthroplasties, because of their excellent results, are considered one of the most rewarding procedures for both the patient and the orthopedic surgeon. They make up about 10 percent of the 2,000 annual interventions performed by the HPA’s Orthopedics (GO) group and have been one of the areas in which the GO has invested the most technically and scientifically for 12 years.

According to Physician João Paulo Sousa, coordinator of the GO HPA, “We believe that with this accurate and safe technology option we will be able to improve our clinical and functional outcomes: reduce the number of dissatisfied patients, and possibly shorten the duration. survival and recovery, allowing for a safer return to activities of daily living, as well as increasing the longevity of the prosthesis.”

All of this effort has the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes. In a recent satisfaction analysis in which 711 patients who underwent knee arthroplasty were evaluated and asked to rate satisfaction from one to ten, 48% rated it as ten and 90% rated it seven or more than seven.

Faced with these results, João Paulo Sousa states that “Continuous improvement is part of our mission, and that is why we set a new goal: to reduce the seven percent who rated their satisfaction at levels below six. The determinants of having an excellent result, a good result or a bad result are factors We do not know or fully master it.”

In orthopedics, as in many areas of medicine, the contribution of new technologies has been precious and growing. An example of this is the system patient equipment (PSI), in which specific and personalized cutting blocks are performed for each patient, a system that has been used by the GO HPA for more than 10 years, after becoming a reference center.

GO HPA’s investment in new technologies has resulted in scientific output (ten publications in indexed journals, three book chapters, 60 conference communications), and is the basis for recognition of the suitability of training by Ordem dos Médicos for orthopedic trainees. The introduction of robots will give a new impetus to this important aspect of medical activity.

After the robot for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia, which was presented at the end of last year, this is another robot in Portugal provided by the HPA Health Group.