Rosonbot Breaks Through High-Tech Barriers in Trauma Orthopedics with World’s First Intelligent Fracture Reduction Robot

Modern surgery is technology-driven, and surgical robots are becoming a key technology driving the shift toward minimally invasive and intelligent surgical procedures.From 2015 to 2020, the global market size for surgical robots increased from $3 billion to $8.32 billion, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6%, and is projected to reach $33.59 billion by 2026.

In the booming surgical robotics market, orthopedic surgical robots represent a major application area. As rigid structures, bones are inherently suited for precise positioning and high-precision manipulation. Furthermore, orthopedics is the second-largest clinical department, offering substantial market potential. The prospects for orthopedic surgical robots are promising, with global industry giants such as Stryker, Medtronic, and Johnson & Johnson actively expanding their presence, alongside a wave of innovative startups entering the field.

Current orthopedic surgical robots mainly target areas such as joint replacement and minimally invasive spine surgery, helping surgeons address challenges like precise bone resection, accurate prosthesis placement, and navigated positioning of drilling channels. However, in the field of trauma orthopedics, which accounts for the largest volume of surgeries, no robotic systems have yet entered clinical practice for addressing the technically challenging problem of fracture reduction. As a result, fracture reduction still heavily relies on surgeons’ individual experience and manual techniques.

andTo address pelvic fracture reduction, the most challenging procedure in trauma orthopedic surgery, Beijing Rossum Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Rossum Robot") has launched the world’s first intelligent fracture reduction robot. Currently, the product has completed 22 research-oriented clinical trials and has entered the phase of multi-center registration clinical trials.

In 2017, Rossum Robot was officially established in Beijing. The company’s core team members all hail from top Chinese universities specializing in medical robotics, possessing interdisciplinary research experience at the intersection of medicine and engineering, along with over a decade of extensive expertise in scientific research and product development within the field of surgical robots. In early 2021, the company completed its Series A financing round, raising tens of millions of yuan, and is currently undertaking a new round of financing.

During discussions with Wang Yu, founder of Rossum Robot, he repeatedly emphasized one term—“urgent clinical need.”

Looking back at Rossum Robot’s development trajectory, the company has indeed leveraged cutting-edge robotic technology to address critical clinical needs—particularly procedures that are difficult for physicians to perform manually—achieving clinical outcomes with robotic assistance that are more than ten times “significantly” better than those without robotics. This has made Rossum Robot’s surgical robots a “critical necessity” for both physicians and patients.

Wang Yu pursued his Ph.D. at the Robotics Institute of Beihang University, participated in the development of China’s first orthopedic surgical robot, and has nearly 20 years of experience in the research and development of surgical robots., maintaining a close connection with clinicians for medical-engineering collaborative innovation. In the field of orthopedics, where they excel, Wang Yu's team has been seeking to address an urgent clinical need for the past decade.

They are well aware that only when patients benefit, robotic operations demonstrate significant superiority over manual procedures performed by physicians, and the overall solution is more cost-effective can both patient and physician needs be met while gaining reimbursement approval. Only under these conditions can orthopedic surgical robots achieve long-term viability.

This is also a set of logic that has been validated by the da Vinci Surgical System over several decades. Although the da Vinci system is widely used in many departments, including urology, gynecology, general surgery, thoracic surgery, and cardiac surgery, urology remains the specialty with the highest global adoption of the da Vinci Surgical Robot. The primary reason is that, in urology, the da Vinci robot has identified core surgical procedures where it offers significant advantages over manual surgeon operation, thereby establishing robotic-assisted surgery as the gold standard for these procedures.

Therefore, identifying a key surgical procedure became the focal point of communication between Wang Yu’s team and orthopedic surgeons. Finally, at a clinical symposium, doctors and engineers collaborated to arrive at the solution: an orthopedic surgical robot with pelvic reduction capabilities.

First, pelvic fracture reduction is extremely challenging. Currently, open reduction involves significant trauma, slow healing, high costs for consumables, and low patient satisfaction. If minimally invasive closed reduction can be achieved, the incision size, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative recovery time, and even the cost of consumables can be reduced by more than tenfold, yielding substantial clinical benefits and fully meeting the health economic evaluation requirements mandated by medical insurance programs.

Second, reduction capability represents a functional “blind spot” in existing orthopedic surgical robot products. In fracture surgeries, particularly in complex pelvic fracture procedures, the critical step of pelvic reduction relies heavily on the surgeon’s individual experience and manual techniques. Currently, open reduction is more commonly employed in clinical practice, while minimally invasive closed reduction is performed only at a limited number of hospitals.

Moreover, unlike other “elective” surgeries, where patients can transfer to top-tier Grade A tertiary hospitals, those requiring pelvic reduction cannot wait long and are less likely to be transferred. Therefore, providing local treatment becomes particularly important.

As the aging of China’s population intensifies, the incidence of pelvic fractures caused by osteoporosis is also rising, and the clinical challenges associated with surgical treatment of pelvic fractures urgently need to be addressed. Therefore,Rossum Robot chose fracture surgery robots, which were an untapped market at the time, starting with pelvic fractures—the most challenging type.。

Pelvic Fractures Are the Fractures with the Highest Mortality and Disability Rates in Traumatic Orthopedics, accounting for approximately 3-5% of all fractures nationwide, with around 120,000 surgical procedures performed annually in China.

Based on the fracture location and the stability of the pelvic ring, pelvic fractures are classified into three types: A, B, and C. Type A fractures account for 19% of cases; these are stable fractures without displacement and generally do not require surgery, as conservative treatment is sufficient. Type B fractures account for 54% of cases; surgical intervention is typically determined based on the degree of pelvic displacement and stability. Type C fractures account for 27% of cases and generally require surgical treatment.

According to Wang Yu, “Clinical literature statistics indicate that approximately 70%–80% of patients with pelvic fractures require surgical intervention, and among these, more than 80% need reduction procedures. However, the actual clinical penetration rate of pelvic fracture surgery remains low. Due to the high technical difficulty of pelvic fracture surgery and its unsuitability for long-distance patient transfer, some patients are compelled to receive treatment at primary care institutions. Given the limited medical capabilities at these grassroots levels, only temporary immobilization and conservative management can be provided.”

Pelvic reduction is the key to the success of pelvic fracture surgery and also the most challenging procedure in such operations. During closed pelvic reduction, surgeons can only infer the extent of pelvic displacement and the current reduction status from two-dimensional fluoroscopic images, using this information for surgical planning and to determine the appropriate reduction maneuvers. Furthermore, the reduction is performed manually, resulting in variable skill levels among surgeons and limited operational precision.

Rossum Robot, Beihang University, and Beijing Jishuitan Hospital adopted a medical-engineering-industry collaboration model to develop the world’s first intelligent fracture reduction robot.

This system provides intelligent assistance throughout the entire workflow, from fracture reduction to positioning, offering modular solutions tailored to surgical requirements at various levels. It enables real-time 3D navigational positioning, automated surgical planning, and automated fracture reduction, thereby facilitating intelligent surgical operations for the complete procedure ranging from closed fracture reduction to minimally invasive fixation. This significantly enhances the precision of pelvic fracture surgeries and improves therapeutic outcomes.

Currently, Rossum Robot’s intelligent fracture reduction robot has initiated multi-center registration clinical trials. Previously, the system successfully completed 22 exploratory clinical cases at Beijing Jishuitan Hospital.

According to Wu Xinbao, Vice President of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital,The success rate of closed reduction for 22 cases of pelvic fracture was 100%, with an excellent and good rate of closed reduction reaching 95%, which is significantly higher than that of traditional surgery.The average 3D accuracy of the reduction procedure for 22 patients reached 3.41 mm, which was significantly superior to the accuracy of manual reduction performed by physicians.

On March 14, 2022, a case report by the team led by Vice President Wu Xinbao on robot-assisted reduction of pelvic fractures using an intelligent fracture reduction robot was successfully published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. In 2020, the Rossum Robot team was also featured in the “Spotlight” section of Nature’s main journal.

Rossum Robot expects to obtain the product registration certificate for its intelligent fracture reduction robot in 2023. Meanwhile, the company will further expand the indications for its intelligent fracture reduction robot products to meet the needs of precise reduction operations in a wider range of surgical procedures.

Focusing on cutting-edge innovations in the field of medical robotics, Rossum Robot’s product portfolio includes, in addition to its intelligent fracture reduction robot, bedside holding robotic arms, miniaturized surgical navigation robots, and automated surgical planning software.

Leveraging a robust R&D approach that integrates medicine and engineering, Rossum Robot aims to build a foundational general-purpose hardware and software platform with core competitiveness, establishing a matrix-style product portfolio.Establishing a Long-Term Development Model of “Equipment + Consumables + Services”。

Wang Yu stated, “The future of surgical robots will follow a platform-based development path. Rossum Robot possesses a robust underlying hardware and software general-purpose platform. The company will establish a clinical-need-driven product innovation system to support our efforts in addressing a broader range of clinical needs in the future. Our ability to rapidly identify and respond to clinical demands, iterate viable solutions, and expedite product development for market launch will serve as the foundational driving force behind Rossum Robot’s long-term sustainable growth.”