New Delhi, Aug 9 (IANS): A 58-year-old ex-Army Subedar, suffering from rare joint arthritis, has got a new lease of life after doctors at Aakash Healthcare here, performed a robotic-assisted knee cap joint replacement surgery.

Rohtas Singh was suffering from acute knee pain due to patellofemoral arthritis for the past five years due to prolonged squatting, climbing hills, stairs.

While arthritis is common in the Indian population, isolated patellofemoral joint arthritis affecting only the front part of the knee fold, is rare -- it affects 1 in 10 people in India.

Doctors conducted patellofemoral joint replacement, also called PFJ replacement or knee cap replacement.

It helped avoid a total knee replacement (TKR). The surgery required insertion of a smaller implant and reduced the surgical time by 30 minutes, as against TKR, which takes one hour.

The surgery helped the patient retain most of his natural knee and also enabled him to walk within two hours, said Dr Aashish Chaudhry, Director, Orthopaedics & Joint Replacement dept, Aakash Healthcare, Dwarka.

"We replaced only the damaged part of the knee instead of the whole knee. The procedure involved minimal soft tissue dissection with quadriceps preservation, which allowed faster recovery of the patient -- instead of six days, as in TKR surgery, he was discharged in 4 days with a complete restoration of leg movement," Chaudhry said in a statement.

"He will undergo routine physiotherapy for 2 weeks and will follow rehabilitation protocols for 1 month. He can resume his normal life after 1 month."

The robotic patellofemoral joint replacement surgery accurately cuts the knee bones and prepares the joints for securing the new implant very precisely. Robotics in knee surgery is a very recent advancement, although robotics is a well-known and established method of treatment for various gastrointestinal (GI), urology and oncological procedures.