Implants and surgical robots are the devices placed inside the body, and the machines and tools that surgeons use to place them. An implant is a device that stays in the body after the operation, often for many years. Some stay for life.
The best-known implants support the heart. Cardiac implants include the pacemaker, a small battery-powered device that keeps the heart beating steadily, and the stent, a tiny mesh tube that holds a narrowed blood vessel open. Many pacemakers now send their readings to the doctor every night. Their firmware, the program inside them, can be updated after the implant.
Orthopaedic implants replace or repair bones and joints. Orthopaedic means to do with bones and joints. Artificial knees and hips are made in many sizes. More and more, the surgeon chooses the size and the angle in advance, from a 3D model built from the patient's own CT scan. An orthopaedic surgical robot then helps the surgeon cut the bone exactly where the plan says.
A surgical robot is used for operations on soft organs, such as the prostate, the womb or the kidney. The surgeon sits at a console and moves small instruments inside the patient, through cuts about a centimetre wide. The robot copies each movement, but smaller and steadier.
Three products here are not implanted at all, but they are planned, built and regulated in a similar way. The insulin pump is worn on the body and doses insulin through a thin tube under the skin. Clear aligners are plastic braces made from a 3D scan of the mouth. Dental CAD/CAM designs a crown on a computer and makes it in the dentist's office.
Pacemakers, stents and artificial joints are in the highest risk classes of India's Medical Devices Rules, because a fault inside the body is hard to correct. So their makers must prove each device safe, and test each software change, before it reaches patients. Safety certification explains how that proof is built. Many of the small precision parts in these devices are made to order by other companies, through on-demand manufacturing.