It's always tricky in orthopedics to talk about revolutions, given the conservative bent of this particular clinical specialty; talk of two revolutions hardly seems credible. Yet the packed crowd of surgeons attending the session on computer-assisted and minimally invasive surgery at this year's American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) meeting spoke to the tremendous interest both hold for this normally conservative clinical community. And given the intricate, mutually enhancing connections between them, perhaps, improbably enough, two revolutions can succeed where each has failed on its own.
In an opening presentation, Anthony DiGioia, MD of Carnegie Mellon University , a leading expert on computers, noted that...