Life-saving robots on the rise

ROBOTS would make ideal surgeons, says physician and researcher Catherine Mohr. They never tire and are always as precise as possible when it comes to performing complex procedures in the fields of urology, gynecology or oncology. And with surgical robots, humans are always in control, sitting at a console to guide the machine’s multiple arms and attached tools.
“It’s an extension and augmentation of the surgeon,” Mohr explains. “It takes the surgeon’s skills and filters out any tremors and allows precise motions on a very small scale. That gives surgeons the dexterity and intuitiveness of motion, even when they’re working through very small incisions. It’s hard to imagine any procedure we do as humans that wouldn’t be improved by better information, dexterity, vision and navigation.”
Mohr probably knows more than most trained surgeons about robots in the operating room. Since 2006, she has been the Director of Medical Research for Intuitive Surgical, the California-based maker of the da Vinci robots. Considered an oddity when they were first introduced in 1999, the machines ­– some 2,400 so far – have found their way into operating rooms around the world. Most are in the U.S., but robot deployments are also growing fast in Europe, Latin America and Asia. 
The rise of surgical robots is due to several factors, Mohr says: “Patients benefit when surgery can be minimally invasive rather than done with incisions large enough to get a surgeon’s hands into. It reduces the risk of complications and the need for blood transfusions. In many cases, patients don’t have to spend time in the intensive care unit and can go home after a few days.”
Using a robotic helper therefore helps hospitals and health-care systems keep perioperative costs down, and surgeons can perform physically demanding procedures repeatedly and still feel fresh at the end of the day. Mohr points to a study in Sweden where minimally invasive surgery reduced the period of paid sick leave for patients from seven weeks with open surgery to less than two weeks. 
There is a lot of development work and innovation still to come. Mohr calls the current state of computer-assisted surgery merely the first phase. “The second phase will be about integrating new clinical knowledge and information into the robotic platform to aid in clinical decision-making,” she says. “The surgeon’s eyes are limited to the visible spectrum. But with cameras, we can overlay three-dimensional vision and use near-infrared and fluorescent dyes to see nerves, blood vessels and tumors deep inside the body.”

Precision tubing for the operating room: Trelleborg provides a wide range of hoses, silicone sheeting, custom-molded components and seals that are used for intravenous lines and catheters, as well as other medical equipment including robotic surgery components
Robotic surgery is steadily expanding its reach, from orthopedics, prostate procedures and hysterectomies tAir Max 2018 Flyknit