Zerozitis ? A disease affecting the Doctors!

Well well this was the new think I learnt while talking to Dr. Shreedhar Archik from Mumbai, a well known joint replacement specialist. I was watching the video of one of his knee replacement surgeries using the latest technology.

So I asked him the details of this new disease.

The human eye can not differentiate between 0 and 3 degrees he said, and most of the surgeries done so far relied upon the so called ?eye balling? technique, which meant it solely, depended on the surgeon?s vision at the time of surgery! But then what it the big deal between 0 and 3 degrees! Dr. Archik gives me an example, he says that we all know that the tire on our car will not last long if the air pressure is either less or more and hence all of us insist at the petrol pump that the tire has the right pressure and there is a machine which measures the exact pressure! But no patient asks the doctor if his knee is in a perfect alignment or not! I start watching the operation now. Dr. Archik is looking at the computer screen and is adjusting the amount of bone he wants to cut. He is busy moving his gadgets till the screen shows that he has got a zero error. He then explains the zerozitis further. A 0.6 mm deviation frankly would not matter and was not even noted in earlier days but since the surgeon can now actually get it to the exact zero he will not accept even 0.1 mm or degree deviation and this striving for the ?ZERO? makes me call it zerozitis i.e. desire to see zero error.

This is achieved by using the GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM. Dr. Archik places special trackers on the patient?s bones and they are tracked by a camera connected to the computer. Dr. Archik records the deformity a patient has before the surgery starts and as he wades his way through the steps of this operation the computer screen keeps guiding him towards the zero error! It records his steps on a cd which can be given to the patient at the end of the surgery! So does this cost more money? Does it reduce the surgical time? The patient has to spend only 10,000 rupees extra for a zero error surgery! However it takes 15 to 30 minutes longer than the traditional surgery. It is particularly useful if the patient has had a previous deformity in the leg due to old fracture or a disease where the traditional system could no guarantee accuracy. So it is a win win situation for both patients and the surgeon. So what next on the technology front? There is an electromagnetic system coming up which will not need these trackers inserted but a tiny chip on the bone will do the trick. Also this is being slowly brought into use for spinal surgeries and fracture surgeries.

Well this is then a disease which common patients may wish that all their doctors suffer from!

Dr. Shreedhar Archik was trained at the European Institute of Special Surgery, Hamburg Germany for the use of Navigation surgery. He specializes in joint replacement surgeries and is attached to Shushrusha and Lilavati Hospitals, Mumbai.