Surgeons at Windsor Regional Hospital have become the first in Ontario to perform a total hip replacement with the assistance of a specialized robot.
Earlier this month, Dr. Greg Jasey and Dr. Mike McCaffrey became the first surgeons in Ontario to perform a total hip replacement with the assistance of the Stryker Mako SmartRobotics system.
The system allows the surgeon to generate a detailed pre-operative plan based on 3D anatomy taken from a pre-operative CT scan. In traditional manual surgery, this is done based on 2D imaging or X-rays.
The assistance of the Stryker Mako robot allows for greater precision and accuracy during the surgery and, as a result, fewer corrective procedures for patients down the road.
Dr. Mike McCaffrey performing a hip replacement surgery with the assistance of Stryker Mako SmartRobotics, a specialized robot used to perform joint replacement surgery. (Photo courtesy of Windsor Regional Hospital)
Jasey says using this technology makes the procedure less invasive when it comes to make bone cuts, reducing the chance for potential issues arising from the surgery.
He calls Canada a First World country and we should be keeping up with the latest technologies in medicine.
"This has been going on in the U.S. for a number of years. There's statistics that up to 50 per cent of the joint replacements are being done robotically. We're just getting on board now but I think it's a step in the right direction," he says.
Jasey says this should give patients a much better outcome.
"The ability to use robotic surgery to do knee and hip replacements is revolutionary in our field. It's going to allow us to do surgeries much more precisely. Essentially we're catching up with industry that's been using robots for many years to do precise cuts," he says.
Bryan Hayes, a 46-year-old Windsor police officer, says he feels great following the surgery and has already started physiotherapy.
"I feel very fortunate to be that first patient in Ontario to take advantage of this new technology," he says. "I'm certainly on the mend, it's been two weeks since the surgery date and I'm up and around with minimal assistance."
Dr. Jasey says right now they're focused on patients who have a little bit more of a complicated prosthetic that needs to be implanted that the robot would be helpful with.
"In the future, probably the selection bias will go down a bit to everybody, depending on if we think it's both financially feasible and having huge impacts on what we expect it will, decreasing pain, decreasing length of stay, decreasing revision rates," he adds.
The $1.5-million machine was purchased by the hospital and has been used for a number of knee replacement procedures, but applying it to hip replacements has been a groundbreaking move in the healthcare sector.
The Stryker Mako SmartRobotics system went operational at WRH on Feb. 1, 2023.
The system was first used for knees by St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton in 2019, while its first use for hips in Canada took place just last year at Dartmouth General Hospital in Nova Scotia and is currently the only other hospital in the country using the technology for hip replacement procedures.