Surgical Robotics

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You just never know what will get the creative juices flowing. It could be a slight aberration from your morning routine. Or it could be something as basic as the entree you order at dinner. The latter is actually what inspired the invention of a crab-like miniature robot that could help surgeons remove early-stage stomach cancers without leaving scars.

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Raven II, a robotic surgery system developed at UC Santa Cruz and the University of Washington, is being shared on an open-source basis with five other universities. Researchers hope that this will enable users to share software, replicate experiments, and collaborate in other ways — and ultimately advance the field through the power of academia.

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Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Eindhoven, the Netherlands
www.tue.nl

A smart eye-surgery robot, developed at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands, allows eye surgeons to operate with increased ease and precision on the retina and the vitreous humor of the eye. It also extends the effective period during which ophthalmologists can carry out these intricate procedures.
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While surgeon and surgical educator Howard Champion was conducting research and training for improving U.S. military combat care, he noticed the need for the development of a simulation-based platform for training surgeons in open surgery. Hoping to address this issue, Champion founded SimQuest (Silver Spring, MD) in 2001. The company set out to develop a platform for open surgical simulation that would be useful for educating trauma — an unconventional idea at the time, since most research was focused on minimally invasive techniques rather than open surgery. The technology has also naturally evolved into a potential training tool for surgical residents.
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In October of 2010, the first all-robotic surgery reportedly took place at Montreal General Hospital in Montreal, Canada. Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci surgical robot worked in conjunction with the McSleepy anesthesia robot to perform a prostatectomy.

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Active Electrode Monitoring (AEM) instruments incorporate a “shielded and monitored” design to lower risk of injury.

Any surgery brings with it risk, both to the patient and the surgeon. However, laparoscopic surgery sometimes brings an additional invisible risk: stray energy burns. Electrosurgical devices and laparoscopic instruments can suffer insulation failures and capacitive coupling, potentially causing stray energy burns to the patient. Often these burns occur out of sight of the surgeon and may go unnoticed until the patient presents with symptoms like peritonitis or sepsis.

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A first-of-its-kind clinical trial of robot-assisted brachytherapy for treating prostate cancer will take place at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Prostate brachytherapy, which requires accurate insertion of some 60 to 120 radioactive seeds in very specific places in the prostate, calls for a high degree of clinical skill and attention to detail. The robot, dubbed EUCLIDIAN, was designed by scientists to provide the steadiest and most precise method possible to implant the radioactive seeds directly at the site of a cancerous tumor in the prostate gland, eliminating the possibility of human error.
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