Costs curbing the rise of robotics in spinal surgery
By Admin | December 04, 2018
The era of routine robotic-assisted spinal surgery is on the horizon. Despite the hype, however, there remains little market penetration, with affordability and the degree of value-added by such technology representing significant barriers to complete disruption of standard practice.
In a recent literature review published in Spine, Srinivas Prasad (Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA) concluded: “It is no longer a question of whether robotics has a role in spine surgery, but rather how and when.” Advantages of robotics include improved accuracy and consistency, and many have postulated that robotics could render complex spinal surgeries as easy as the simplest spine operations, reducing human error and surgical morbidity. However, many barriers remain before the use of robotics in spinal surgeries becomes routine.
Surgical applications for robotics truly emerged in the 1980s, with the adaptation and subsequent adoption of industrial robots. In 2001, Mazor Robotics (Caesarea, Israel) launched the first surgical robot specifically targeting applications in spinal surgery. The company released SpineAssist in 2004. Today, there are a limited number of spine robotic systems: Mazor X and Renaissance (both Medtronic, which acquired Mazor in Autumn 2018), Excelsius GPS (Globus Medical), ROSA (Zimmer biomet, which acquired the ROSA developers Medtech in 2017), and the recently introduced robotic offering from Chinese robots company Tinavi Medical Technology.
For more information, please read Costs curbing the rise of robotics in spinal surgery by Spinal News International.
