Transcripts

"Bill of Health" -Robo Replacements

JEFF YASTINE: Millions of Americans are facing total knee replacement surgeries. It's a major operation involving the removal of the entire knee joint and months of rehabilitation. As my latest "Bill of Health" explains, advances in robotic technology are making less-invasive surgeries with minimal recovery time available to more people. Watching total knee replacement surgery. Well, it's a lot like watching a mechanic work on a car, with lots of sawing, drilling and hammer-tapping. And the rehabilitation can take up to three months. Dr. Maurice Ferre, CEO of Mako Surgical, believes his firm's FDA approved robotic arm will make a less-invasive technique, partial knee resurfacing, a more popular alternative.

DR. MAURICE FERRE, PRESIDENT & CEO, MAKO SURGICAL CORP.: The burr will guide its way through and it will lock itself in. And once it's locked as you can see here, it creates a wall. So you can't go beyond these borders. So the surgeon actually is looking at the screen here that showing what he has to burr out.

YASTINE: The surgery is done through a small cut in the knee, so a color-coded virtual rendering of the patient's knee guides the surgeon's bone- removing tool. When the burring stops, a pair of metallic implants are glued in on the upper and lower knee to replace damaged bone and cartilage. Morningstar analyst Bradley Kay says the key to the Mako device is that it allows more surgeons to do what is otherwise a very delicate surgical technique.

BRADLEY KAY, ANALYST, MORNINGSTAR: Those at the moment can only be performed by the very best and most skilled surgeons out there. Medical robotics really takes those techniques which save money and allows all surgeons to perform them, by making them much more accessible.

YASTINE: The Mako system is new, so only about a half dozen hospitals and clinics use the robotic devices, which the company builds at its facilities in Davie, Florida. Medical robotics itself remains a somewhat controversial subject, with some critics questioning whether robotic devices are really worth the cost. But with active, arthritic and aging baby boomers and a broader industry trend toward less costly, minimally- invasive surgeries, Mako's CEO sees a bigger trend unfolding.

FERRE: When you are trying to do minimally invasive surgery, what you are giving up is access, visualization. The use of robotics specifically for dexterity, for the ability to do very specific tasks, it works extremely well.

YASTINE: Analysts believe there's a potentially large market for publicly traded Mako's surgical robot. About 50,000 partial knee resurfacings are done nationwide each year now. That number could go much higher using the less invasive, robotic procedure.