Press Release
New robot set to revolutionise hip surgery at
The London Clinic
A leading
consultant orthopaedic surgeon at The London Clinic is pioneering a
new, state-of-the-art robot to perform complex hip operations. The
Acrobot Navigator™ is set to bring about extremely precise and
consistent hip-resurfacing procedures, and is expected to
dramatically reduce the need for repeat operations.
Professor Justin Cobb has been trialing the new technology –
which he helped create – at The London Clinic. Cobb hopes the
procedure, which repairs hip bone deformities by covering the
femoral head with a cast of chrome alloy, will help prevent the
need for patients to 
undergo
further painful and expensive operations – an all too common ‘side
effect’ of more traditional surgery.
Conventional methods of correcting such painful deformities are
often highly complex, require immense precision and accuracy and
rely on years of expertise. In contrast, the Acrobot Navigator™
uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) type technology to enable
the user to ‘virtually’ navigate during surgery to plot correct
surgical cuts. It also indicates the correct angles for inserting
chrome alloy parts needed to repair hip bones.
The Acrobot Navigator™ consists of a
console and two tracking arms which can sense the movement of
surgical tools as they move around a patient’s hip area and provide
detailed images of where the tools are relative to the bones. This
information is then fed into software which generates a virtual
model of a patient’s hip as it is being operated on.
Professor Justin Cobb, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at The
London Clinic, says: “Until now surgeons have only been able to
gain the necessary experience for performing hip-resurfacing via
the ‘learning process’ of repeatedly carrying out the procedure.
However, this in itself can cause problems for patients as the
perils of incorrectly repairing hip bones can lead to further wear
and tear, forcing many with no other option other than to undergo
further painful surgery.
“The Acrobot Navigator™ is unique in that the simplicity of its
navigation equipment enables surgeons to become highly proficient
in the technique in a very short space of time. With more than
5,000 hip-resurfacing operations performed every year in the UK,
this new technology is good news for patients who can now demand
perfection and look forward to results that will last a lifetime.
“