Phoenix-area hospital using robot to assist spinal surgeries

PEORIA, Ariz. — A Phoenix-area hospital has become the first in Arizona to use a small robot during spinal surgeries.

Dr. Ed Dohring, a spinal surgeon at Abrazo Arrowhead Campus near 67th Avenue and Loop 101 in Peoria, said the Mazor Robotics Renaissance Guidance System essentially uses a robot instead of X-rays to decide where to place corrective screws in the spine.

“During the surgery, the robot is placed onto the spine,” he said. “Then the computer software guides the robot to show us exactly where to place the screw, based on the CT scan.”

Seven patients who have undergone the less-invasive, robot-assisted surgery the hospital has performed reported less scarring, less time in the hospital and a faster recovery, Dohring said.

“My previous two surgeries, I needed blood transfusions.  In this surgery, I did not,” Ann Brandt Williams, who has a degenerative disc disease, said of her first robot-assisted surgery.

Brandt Williams said a 2012 surgery kept her hospitalized for five days. Her recovery time was nearly one-fifth of that after the robot was used to treat her.

“My surgery was on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday night I felt good enough to go home,” she said.

A former nurse, Brandt Williams said the evolution of medical technology never fails to astound her.

“I started off in nursing in 1967, and you would have been in the hospital for three weeks for this kind of surgery,” she said. “They would have had you in a body cast. They didn’t have all of this technology. I can just see all of the advances that have been made.  This is just marvelous for people to be out of the hospital in two or three days.”

The Mazor Robot costs more than $1 million and has been used in more than 10,000 surgeries in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Edit: An earlier version of this post identified the hospital as Abrazo Health Care Arrowhead in Glendale, Arizona. This version has been updated. 

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