Computer and Robotic Assisted Orthopaedic Knee Arthroplasty Surgery Who drives innovations?

Computer assisted and Robotic technology in orthopaedic surgery is still not commonplace compared to un-assisted, conventional orthopaedic surgery. We analysed the relationship between patents and publications trend and question whether we could recognise a pattern which would confirm industry-driven innovation in orthopaedic surgery.Following the same methodology used by Dalton et al. in 2016, we searched pubmed for publications between 1980 and 2018 concerning unicompartmental, patient specific instrumentation, navigation and robotic knee arthroplasty, and patents registered under the “knee arthroplasty” or “knee replacement” label over the same period. Data was plotted using 4 point moving averages.Between 2004 and 2008, the number of publications regarding navigation multiplied by 20 following the number of patents registered during the same period. From 2008 onwards, the number of navigation publications declined while Patient Specific Instrumentation (PSI) publications increased also following patent investments from orthopaedic companies. Finally, robotic publications grew significantly pulled by massive patent registrations after 2012.It seems that the industry has finally found a lucrative economical model after many years of trial and errors and sustained driving innovations.