Robots can fit in small spaces in people’s bodies that a surgeon can’t reach without cutting through living tissue, or doing other collateral damage.
So it’s good news that surgeons successfully performed a robotic liver transplant procedure, a big step forward. The first transplantation of this kind was carried out by a surgical team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They did the procedure at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
An old man needed a life-saving transplant after developing liver cancer and cirrhosis as a result of the hepatitis C virus.
According to the medical school’s official statement, he is now healing and has returned to normal, every-day activities.
“The transplant was a success: The operation went smoothly, the new liver started working right away, and the patient recovered without any surgical complications,” said Adeel Khan, MD, a transplant surgeon, who led the surgical team.
Previously, only 3 surgeries in the world were robot-assisted. The most common type of clinical robotic surgical system surgeons use includes a camera and mechanical arms with surgical instruments attached to them.
Robot assistance allows more precision in brain surgeries than humans performing surgery, which often damages healthy tissue.
For example, a Hong Kong-based research center – the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) – has pioneered a robotics system for brain surgery uses artificial intelligence for minimally invasive neurosurgery.
Called MicroNeuro, the robotics system incorporates technologies such as flexible endoscopy, precision control, and AI to cope with the challenges of dealing with fragile brain tissue, small space, and difficulty in surgical manipulation, transcending the limits of human hand-eye-brain capability.
