First completely robotic implant surgery performed in China

Somewhere in the region of 400 million patients in China require new teeth, and just one million implants are performed every year due to a lack of qualified dentists there. Additionally, patients face inadequate quality of surgery and human error, which in turn causes more dental problems.
In a bid to combat both issues, scientists at Beihang University in Beijing and the Fourth Military Medical University’s Stomatological Hospital have developed a robot capable of performing dental procedures without the assistance of humans. Indeed this same robot has already performed a one-hour surgical procedure by implanting two new 3D printed teeth in a female patient in Xian, Shaanxi province in the presence of medical staff, but without their intervention. The procedure was a success and now there is hope that China’s dental issues can be overcome through technology.
Dental surgeons have just a small space inside the mouth to work with and some oral areas are difficult to see, making some dental procedures tricky to perform. This robot followed a set of pre-programmed commands to fit the implants into the patient’s mouth, and was able to make adjustments as the woman moved. Some dentists suggest that surgery either performed by robots or at least assisted by robots, facilitates dentists to perform complicated surgery with more precision, but others question whether these operations are safe.