Robot-Assisted Surgery

Tuesday, 08 December 2009 14:36

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Technology is revolutionizing the medical field with the creation of robotic devices and complex imaging. Though these developments have made operations much less invasive, robotic systems have their own disadvantages that prevent them from replacing surgeons. Minimally invasive surgery is a broad concept encompassing many common procedures that existed prior to the introduction of robots, such as laparoscopic cholecystectomy or gall bladder excisions.

It refers to general procedures that avoid long cuts by entering the body through small (usually about 1cm) entry incisions, through which surgeons use long-handled instruments to operate on tissue within the body. Such operations are guided by viewing equipment (i.e. endoscope) and, therefore, do not necessarily need the use of a robot. However, it is not incorrect to say that computer-assisted and robotic surgeries are categories under minimally invasive surgery.

Both computer-assisted and robotic surgeries have similarities when it comes to preoperative planning and registration. Because a surgeon can use computer simulation to run a practice session of the robotic surgery beforehand, there is a close tie between these two categories and this may explain why some people often confuse them as interchangeable. However, their main distinctions lie in the intraoperative phase of the procedure: robotic surgeries may use a large degree of computer assistance, but computer-assisted surgeries do not use robots.

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