Nissen 1

Esther Nissen

Convergent Science

12 March 2021

The Use of AI in Orthopedic Surgery

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been taking over the world since it was first invented, and

the orthopedic industry is no different. However, this does not mean that there have not been

difficulties in the way, preventing AI from being embraced by more people. Nevertheless, AI is

making the impossible possible. As AI becomes more accessible to orthopedic surgeons, patient

care and surgery time are just two of the aspects that will be improved with AI.

With AI, orthopedic procedures have become more effective. Peter Verrillo, Co-Founder

and Chief Executive Officer of the Enhatch, a surgical platform, says that AI was able to

overcome the constraints that CT data was encountering when engineering orthopedic implants.

As a result, Enhatch created a system driven strictly by AI that enables “implant- and patient-

specific instrument design” and makes orthopedic surgeries more efficient. It is able to do this

because AI can create assumptions based on different observations and data that may potentially

be beneficially to orthopedics, greatly cutting down the time it takes to do different, time-

consuming functions. Before the use of AI, orthopedic surgeons were spending too much time

constructing a preoperative plan; however, now AI is able to generate the surgery plan and

determine the different patient-specific implements needed, cutting down the time surgeons now

have to spend on preoperative planning.

Besides improving preoperative planning, AI has also advanced healthcare imaging. The

demand for medical imaging technology has increased as it has developed, but this has led to an

increase in work for radiologists, almost making it too much for them to handle. With AI, the
 Nissen 2

radiologist can not only become more efficient and gain more accurate results, but it also

generates new instruments and treatments for patients. Zebra Medical Vision, an Israeli startup

company, plan to use AI to convert 2D x-rays into 3D images, greatly benefitting and improving

orthopedic surgeons’ abilities to make correct assessments. This can be done because using AI, it

can process data quickly from a variety of sources, meaning surgeons do not have to spend time

looking through different sources for the information they need because it all will be in one

domain. This allows them to make better informed decisions for their patients. With AI, surgeons

are now able to be more accurate in their surgeries and create reproducible results.

However, with the benefits that AI provides, there are obstacles that are holding it back in

orthopedics from becoming used universally. Primarily, this is due to the FDA. Until recently,

FDA guidelines have not been particularly open to devices that update by itself over time, and

been more biased to technologies needing human intervention to update. Now, the FDA has

started to adapt its ways, and are developing a framework that, while still maintaining its main

goal of safety and welfare, would take the ever-advancing AI technologies into account, not only

in orthopedics but also in other areas of medicine. Aside from the FDA, advancing AI

technology in orthopedics is also faced with other challenges and problems. Orthopedic surgeons

find it hard to trust AI and the data it provides if they themselves do not know or understand how

it found it. In their field of work, they are responsible for the life and death of their patients, so it

can be difficult for them to let go of some of their control to devices that provide data they do not

understand how they got. Furthermore, bringing AI into the industry now will be challenging

because some of the machines and equipment currently being used were not built to maintain and

adapt to these levels of technology that AI provides. However, with these obstacles in mind,
 Nissen 3

there is not much to be done but look to the future to see what it has in store for AI in

orthopedics.

Despite these challenges, AI has unbounded possibilities and prospects when it comes to

the future. There is no doubt that using AI will not only benefit orthopedic surgeons, but also

their patients, creating quicker recoveries and more efficient surgeries. Using AI will create a

data-based environment used to guide and warn surgeons, preventing them from making

unnecessary mistakes. As AI becomes more prominent in orthopedics, it will not just change the

industry but revolutionize it.

 Nissen 4

Works Cited

McGuire, Patrick. "AI is the Next Great Advancement in Orthopedic Technology."

Bonezone, 20 Oct. 2020, www.bonezonepub.com/

2815-ai-is-the-next-great-advancement-in-orthopedic-technology. Accessed 9

Mar. 2021.