[Effectiveness of robot assisted percutaneous kyphoplasty for treatment of single/double-segment osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures]

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of robot assisted and C-arm assisted percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP) in the treatment of single/double-segment osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (OVCF).

Methods: The clinical data of 108 cases of single/double-segment OVCF who met the selection criteria between May 2018 and October 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. There were 65 cases of single-segment fractures, of which 38 cases underwent "TiRobot" orthopedic robot-assisted PKP (robot group), 27 cases underwent C-arm X-ray machine fluoroscopy-assisted PKP (C-arm group). There were 43 cases of double-segment fractures, including 21 cases in robot group and 22 cases in C-arm group. There was no significant difference in gender, age, T value of bone mineral density, fracture segment distribution, time from injury to operation, and preoperative visual analogue scale (VAS) score, vertebral kyphosis angle (VKA), and height of fractured vertebra (HFV) in the patients with single/double-segments fractures between robot group and C-arm group ( P>0.05). The operation time, the fluoroscopy frequency of the surgeons and the patient, the fluoroscopy exposure time of the surgeons and the patient, the radiation dose of the C-arm; the VAS scores, VKA, HFV before operation, at 1 day and 6 months after operation; and the complications in the two groups were recorded and compared.

Results: All patients underwent surgery successfully. The operation time of the single-segment robot group was significantly longer than that of the C-arm group ( t=5.514, P=0.000), while the operation time of the double-segment robot group was not significantly different from that of the C-arm group ( t=1.892, P=0.205). The single/double-segment robot group required three-dimensional scanning, so the fluoroscopy frequency, fluoroscopy exposure time, and radiation dose of C-arm received by the patient were significantly higher than those of the C-arm group ( P<0.05); the fluoroscopy frequency and the fluoroscopy exposure time received by the surgeons were significantly less than those of the C-arm group ( P<0.05). There was no infection, embolism, neurological injury, and adjacent segmental fractures. The single/double-segment robot group showed lower rate of cement leakage when compared with the C-arm group ( P<0.05), all the cases of cement leakage happened outside the spinal canal. The VAS score, VKA, and HFV of the single/double-segment robot group and the C-arm group were significantly improved at 1 day and 6 months after operation ( P<0.05), and the VAS score at 6 months after operation was further improved compared with that at 1 day after operation ( P<0.05). At 1 day and 6 months after operation, there was no significant difference in VAS score between the single/double-segment robot group and the C-arm group ( P>0.05). The VKA and HFV of robot group were significantly better than those of the C-arm group ( P<0.05).

Conclusion: For single/double-segment OVCF, robot assisted PKP has more advantages in correcting VKA and HFV, reducing fluoroscopy exposure of surgeons and bone cement leakage rate; C-arm assisted PKP has more advantages in reducing the operation time of single-segment OVCF and fluoroscopy exposure of patients during operation.