Mako, an orthopedic robot that helps surgeons fit knee prostheses

It’s a small revolution in orthopedic surgery. Mako is a 400 kg rolling cart equipped with a robotic arm and a camera connected to a computer. This robot will assist the surgeon for the fitting of a prosthesis.

This technical innovation improves the dexterity of surgical operations and makes it possible to place hip or knee prostheses with unequaled precision. This robot facilitates the adjustment of the prosthesis according to the patient’s own anatomy and ensures the more natural and physiological functioning of the new joint. This state-of-the-art technology, which thus makes the doctor’s intervention more precise, is based on a virtual 3D reconstruction of the unique anatomy of the person operated on.

The Mako robot is demanded by surgeons for the precision of the gesture but also by the patients for less invasive gestures. It is therefore less post-operative suffering and a faster assured return home for the sick thanks to this advanced technology, coming from the United States.

Because if this operation of total or partial prosthesis of the hip or the knee is common, it remains very delicate. Now, several hundred patients have been operated on with Mako’s intervention. The robot has landed in several hospitals and clinics in France. to date, there are more than ten such as that of Toulouse, Montpellier, Lyon or Bordeaux.