How Often Does Robotic Spine Surgery Go Well?

Dr. Steve Paragioudakis, MD pointed out that when comparing robotic to traditional spine surgery, how well you heal after the treatment is one of the most important things to look at. Robotic surgery on the spine has a much faster recovery time than traditional spinal surgery. Most patients can go home 24 hours after their surgery. That's a massive edge over conventional surgery, where recovery takes longer.

Also, surgeons are often better able to move around nerves, blood vessels, and arteries in the spine when they use a robotic technique. This is because minor cuts make it easier for surgeons to see the surrounding tissue, which makes the process safer and less painful.

In the past, surgeons would put screws in the spine "freehand," meaning they would use their own sense and feel or a lot of X-rays to help them. This can make it more likely that screws will be put in the wrong place or in a less-than-ideal position, which can make the treatment less effective and could hurt the patient.

MIS doctors have to go through a learning curve before they can use robots well during lumbar transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF). However, studies have shown that, over time, robotic surgery cuts down on operative times, blood loss, and radiation exposure compared to freehand techniques. Most likely, this is because the surgeon is getting better at using the robot and because robot technology is getting better.

A second benefit of the robot is that it can be used to do exact decortication on the facet joints. This makes fusion easier when combined with the placement of pedicle screws and an interbody graft. This means that the surgeon doesn't have to take bone from the giver or use bone from a bone graft. This makes the surgery faster, easier, and more effective.

The last important thing to think about is how safe and effective robotic spine surgery is in general. Even though some odd problems can happen, the risks of robotic surgery are mostly the same as those of traditional or open spinal surgery. Several tools, such as general health surveys (SF-36, EQ-5D) and patient-reported outcome measures (ODI), have been made to measure how a patient feels. Even though robotics has only been used in spine surgery for a short time, patients say that the results are better in the short term after robotic surgery than after traditional surgery.