PURPOSE: To evaluate the platform-specific learning curve and early tibial radiographic agreement of imageless ROSA®-assisted medial unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA), with short-term clinical findings assessed exploratorily.
METHODS: This retrospective consecutive case series included 30 patients who underwent ROSA®-assisted medial UKA with the Persona® Partial Knee implant between January and April 2026 at a high-volume arthroplasty referral centre. A continuous learning-curve cumulative summation (LC-CUSUM) analysis of total surgical duration was performed against an independently defined surgeon-specific historical benchmark derived from institutional operative-register skin-to-skin times for manual UKA performed by the same surgeon (20 ± 4 min). Adequate performance was defined as a mean duration of 25 min, inadequate performance as 30 min, and the reference standard deviation as 4 min. Type I and type II error targets were 0.05 and 0.10, respectively; the decision boundary was calibrated by Monte Carlo simulation over a 30-case monitoring horizon. Robotic time and a supportive comparison of cases 1-5 versus 6-30 were secondary efficiency analyses. Postoperative radiographic measurements were performed by an observer blinded to the planned and robot-validated ROSA® values. Agreement was quantified using Bland-Altman bias and 95% limits of agreement.
RESULTS: Mean robotic time was 14.5 ± 2.4 min, mean non-robotic time was 8.9 ± 3.1 min (range, 4.1-15.6), and mean total surgical duration was 23.4 ± 2.3 min. The continuous LC-CUSUM score crossed the calibrated decision boundary (h = 4.5895) at case 6. Robotic time was 16.0 ± 3.8 min in cases 1-5 and 14.2 ± 2.0 min in cases 6-30 (p = 0.787); corresponding total durations were 24.8 ± 3.8 and 23.1 ± 1.9 min (p = 0.385). Bland-Altman bias for postoperative minus planned measurements was + 0.13° for tibial coronal alignment and + 0.10° for tibial slope; bias for postoperative minus robot-validated HKA was + 0.34°. All 30 postoperative radiographic measurements were within ± 2° of the planned target for both tibial coronal alignment and slope (100%; exact 95% CI, 88.43%-100%).
CONCLUSIONS: The predefined platform-specific temporal-performance standard was reached after six cases by an experienced high-volume UKA surgeon. Tibial planned-to-postoperative deviations were small in this consecutive series, while the findings remain conditional on the specified benchmark and require external validation.
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