A Windsor teenager is standing tall after becoming the first paediatric patient in Ontario to receive spinal surgery with the Medtronic Mazor robotic spine platform.
The London Health Sciences Centre got this device in 2025, but when Paige Hillman, 14, had her surgery in March, she was the first child to go through the procedure.
This operation, aimed at correcting scoliosis, helps straighten the spine using rods and screws. The Mazor robot assists with accuracy and speed, enhancing both results and recovery time.
Paige’s mom, Melissa Hillman, also has scoliosis and understands the discomfort that comes with it. With guidance from the team at Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre, she felt this was the best option for her daughter.
“I was a little scared at first. I did a lot of Googling to make sure I knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into. With the doctor’s help explaining everything to us, we decided this is probably the best procedure for her,” said Melissa Hillman.
Paige admitted she felt nervous but liked being a pioneer in this procedure within the province.
“It felt cool cause I told my friends about it, and they kept saying that I’m going to be famous and all that. But I’m not going to be that famous. I thought that was fun, but I was also a little bit scared because I’ve never had a surgery before,” said Paige Hillman.
Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Patrick Thornley mentioned that Paige was an excellent candidate for this surgery.
“She had appropriate anatomy that would allow us to instrument the spine and get a great correction if we could have the robot place a couple of the more challenging screws on the concave side, which is the side that is most rotated,” said Dr. Thornley.
The operation turned out to be very successful.
“We likely saved 15-20 minutes of operative time which has significant cost and patient benefit outcomes for her and we were able to get them all in perfect position using pre-planned software so our correction was nearly radiographically perfect which is what we were hoping for,” said Dr. Thornley.
Dr. Thornley noted that after just six weeks of recovery time you couldn’t even tell Paige had surgery done.
“Her post-operative course was completely unremarkable, and we mean that in the best way possible. She was sitting at the side of her bed by evening of day one and up walking by day two; she followed a rapid post-operative recovery pathway home,” said Dr. Thornley.
Provided by London Health Sciences Centre Paige and Melissa reported she’s back to daily activities at home and ready for high school come fall.
“I’m hoping this means she’s not going to be in lots of pain as she gets older. Hopefully she’ll manage everything normally without having trouble like I’ve faced doing many things,” said Melissa Hillman.
Both University Hospital along with Victoria Hospital and Children’s Hospital now have their own Mazor robotic platforms; so far surgeons at LHSC have completed 10 to 15 procedures utilizing this platform across various ages and conditions.
“I think we’ve had great success with Paige as our first case; now we’ve moved past acute post-op period we’ve seen she’s done excellently with this approach; I believe there will be growing comfort among us when using this on future patients,” said Dr. Thornley.
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