A brave soul in China became the first person ever to have implants placed by a robot.
While humans were present and supervised things, they did not lay a finger on the robot OR patient during the surgery.
And, by all accounts the surgery went off without a hitch.
The robot surgically implanted 2 implants in the patient’s mouth. Both implants were fitted within the standard 0.2 – 0.3mm margin of error required for this implant procedure.
Before the surgery began, the robot was oriented to the patient’s head and mouth. Next, researchers programmed the robot with commands it followed to perform its duty. The procedure to place these two 3D printed teeth lasted about an hour.
If you think this sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, it is. But it’s likely coming to a cosmetic dentist’s office near you sooner than you think.
Dentists have increasingly been using robotics to help perform procedures such as root canals and some orthodontic procedures. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration approved Yomi – a robotic system designed to help cosmetic dentists perform dental implant procedures.
It’s one thing to have a robot assisting a dentist. It’s completely another thing, as was the case in China, to have the robot perform the whole enchilada.
And cosmetic dentists in China could use the help quite frankly. It’s estimated around 400 million people in China need dental implants. Yet only about 1 million of the procedures are done each year. Having autonomous robots will go a long way to making up for the dentist shortage there.
If you’d like to see this dentist robot in action, check out the video below…
