Robot-assisted joint replacement surgeries, which are very common in the United States of America, can rule out the possibility of human error in total knee and hip replacement, orthopaedic surgeon Sasapu Sasi Bhushana Rao said, here on Monday.
Dr. Rao is the first Telugu surgeon to undergo training in Robotic and Computer Navigation from Dr. Chitranjan Ranawat at the Hospital for Special Surgeries (HSS) in New York from October 1 to December 31, 2016.
Dr. Ranawat had shot into fame after he had performed the knee replacement surgery on former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
The Ranawat Research Foundation, New York, has been offering fellowships to surgeons from across the world since 1986. Dr. Ranawat, hailing from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, had settled in the US 50 years ago.
The Foundation has been selecting three doctors from India during the last 30 years. Dr. Rao had completed his graduation from Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam, in 2001.
He was the all-India topper in post-graduation M.S. (Orthopaedics from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and is presently a Professor in Orthopaedics at the Maharaja Institute of Medical Sciences (MIMS) in Vizianagaram. “Conventional knee replacement surgeries are being done in India with a success rate of around 90 per cent. This latest robotic-assisted surgeries can ensure 99 per cent success rate. Over 80 knee replacements are being done in HSS every day. The robot-assisted surgery costs between $ 60,000 and $ 1 lakh but it is affordable there as all patients are covered by health insurance,” Dr. Rao said during an interaction with the media. On the prospects of robot-assisted joint replacements in India, he said it was still a long way to go. While conventional knee replacement surgeries cost between Rs.1.5 lakh and Rs.3 lakh, robot-assisted surgeries are estimated to cost Rs.1 crore.
