Early Postoperative Results in Robotic-Arm-Assisted Total Knee Replacement versus Conventional Technique: First Latin American Experience.

Abstract

Early results with robotic-arm-assisted total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are encouraging; nevertheless, literature might be unrepresentative, as it comes mostly from American, European, and Asian countries. There is limited experience and no comparative clinical reports in Latin America, a region of mainly low- and middle-income countries with limited access to these promising technologies. This study aims to compare the early postoperative results of the first Latin American experience with robotic-arm-assisted TKA versus conventional TKA. A cohort study was performed, including 181 consecutive patients (195 knees) with advanced symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA) undergoing primary TKA between March 2016 and October 2019. The cohort included 111 consecutive patients (123 knees) undergoing conventional TKA, followed by 70 consecutive patients (72 knees) undergoing robotic-arm-assisted TKA. The same surgical team (surgeon 1 and surgeon 2) performed all procedures. Patients with previous osteotomy, posttraumatic OA, and revision components were not considered. The same anesthetic and rehabilitation protocol was followed. The investigated clinical outcomes (for the first 60 postoperative days) were: surgical tourniquet time, time to home discharge, time to ambulation, postoperative daily pain (Visual Analog Scale), opioid use, range of motion, blood loss, complications, and postoperative mechanical axis. The early clinical postoperative results of this first Latin American comparative experience of robotic-arm-assisted TKA versus conventional technique showed lower opioids requirements and faster functional recovery of ambulation in those patients operated with the robotic system; nevertheless, surgical times were higher, without differences in total postoperative complications and other clinical outcomes.