ROGERS, Ark — There is a new robot called Mazor X in the operating room at Mercy Hospital in Rogers. Its job is to assist with spinal surgeries to eliminate mistakes.
"You are working through them as a robotic arm, and this helps us place the screws exactly ... where they need to be," Mercy Neurosurgeon Dr. Alex Castellvi said. "And we're able to preoperatively ... plan those screws before placing them in before going to the operating room."
The Mazor X robot will not replace surgeons, instead, it's a tool in their toolbox. On Tuesday morning, Castellvi used the robot to complete a lumbar fusion on a patient with a spinal condition that causes lower back pain called spondylolisthesis.
"We'll expose the spine. After we expose the spine, the Mazor robot will then be attached to the patient. We do a set of registration processes that you'll see," Castellvi said. "After that, you'll see the robotic arm really in action where ... you'll realize how much it controls. You're still placing the robot. [It] isn't placing the screw, it's assisting with placing the screw and trajectories."
Castellvi says the technology comes with several benefits, such as:
- Surgical Plans: Physicians create a personalized surgical plan for patients before entering the operating room, which can be described as GPS navigation for the spine, enhancing the precision of complex spinal procedures.
- Improved Implant Accuracy: The robot ensures precise placement of spinal instrumentation, improving safety, and outcomes.
- Reduced Surgery Time and Length of Stay: The technology streamlines surgical procedures, leading to shorter operative times and reduced recovery periods.
"It creates a much better workflow in the operating room, where, you know, we're able to get patients on the table and off the table much faster," Catellvi said. "But, also it decreases hospital stay, decreases the amount of blood loss, and that's the overall goal with the patient care."
Although robotic technology has been around for years, having this tool in local hospitals will help change lives without patients needing to travel far.
"There's a lot of places in the country that don't have these things," Catellvi said. "We want to stay ahead of the game here, you know, to be able to recruit."
But this type of technology doesn't come with a cheap price tag. Mercy Hospital says a local philanthropist Laurice Hachem donated in honor of her late husband, who battled Lewy body dementia, made the purchase possible.
"This is what helped to save his life, and I just want everyone else to have that same opportunity," Hachem said.
But this isn't the first time she's paid it forward. Her past contributions enhanced neurosurgical capabilities that allowed patients to receive specialized care close to home.
"You always want to believe that when you give, whether it's monetary or time, you want to know that it matters, that it makes a difference, that it's successful, that it's helping," Hachem said. "With this technology for Mercy, it's going to make a huge difference to so many people [and] so many lives."
Castellvi says he's seeing that difference—one patient at a time.
Mercy Hospital says Castellvi's experience with the robot stems from surgeries he performed with a previous version of the device during his residency and fellowship at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before he joined Mercy.
It's a personal connection for the surgeon because his late father, Dr. Antonio Castellvi, who was considered to be a research luminary in the field of spinal surgery, worked with the first iteration of the Mazor.
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