HOW MUCH CAN A SURGEON TRUST A ROBOT FOR HIP ARTHROPLASTY?

Abstract

The variables involved in a robotic THA can exceed 52: many parameters as pelvic orientation with CT scan, templating, offset, and leg-length, acetabular reaming, femoral osteotomy, mapping the anatomy; predefining safe zones, robotic execution, femoral head size, thickness of PE etc. with several variables for each parameter, with a total number of variables exceeding 52. This familiar number is the number of cards in a standard deck. The number of possible combinations (factorial 52! = 10^67) to shuffle the cards (and may be to perform a THA) is greater than the number of atoms on earth! Thinking that artificial intelligence and robotics can solve these problems, some surgeons and implant manufacturers have turned to artificial intelligence and robotics. We asked two questions:1) can robot with artificial intelligence really process 52 variables that represent 10^67 combinations? 2) the safety of the technology was ascertained by interrogating Food and Drug Administration (FDA) database about software-related recalls in computer-assisted and robotic arthroplasty [1], between 2017 and 2022. 1) The best computers can only calculate around 100 thousand billion combinations (10^14), and with difficulty: it takes more than 100 days to arrive at this number of digits (10^14) after the decimal point for the number π (pi). We can, therefore, expect the robot to be imperfect. 2) For the FDA software-related recalls, 4634 units were involved. The FDA determined root causes were: software design (66.6%), design change (22.2%), manufacturing deployment (5.6%), design manufacturing process (5.6%). Among the manufacturers’ reasons for recalls, a specific error was declared in 88.9%. a coding error in 43.8%. 94.4% software-related recalls were classified as class 2. Return of the device was the main action taken by firms (44.4%), followed by software update (38.9%). 3) In the same period, no robot complained about its surgeon! Hip surgeon is as intelligent as a robot and almost twice as safe.

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