Robotic surgery -- a new hope for the fight against cancer

With nearly 4000 patents and pending patents, da Vinci Robot is filled to the brim with innovation.

Cancer is a relentless disease. Damaging organs and tissue in its wake, cancer can be insidious in its onset, hiding malignant cells and tumours in the most unreachable parts of the body. Early detection is a daunting challenge. Once detected, patients find it hard to accept its presence wasting time in exploring alternatives. Eventually calling for surgery, medication and a combination of Radio and Chemotherapy. But there is one hope on the horizon for sufferers of this most devastating of conditions. Robotic surgery methods can allow for hugely magnified views of the damaged tissue and provide the very fine and precise instruments needed to get access to them inside the body and bring relief.

More often than not people assume that the robot does the surgery and not the surgeon. They think that the surgeon just feeds in the details into the computer and then watches the robot operate, or worse, walks out for a hot cup of tea in the lounge, shares Dr Gagan Gautam, Head, Urologic Oncology & Robotic Surgery, Max Institute of Cancer Care, New Delhi. The reality is that the robot is not an independent entity. Robotic surgery cannot take place without a highly skilled surgeon at the console. The robot is only as good as the surgeon and staff behind them.

The da Vinci Surgical Robot combines the best of science and medicine. With nearly 4000 patents and pending patents, da Vinci Robot is filled to the brim with innovation. What the robot adds is a way of seeing better and four flexible arms that enter the human body through tiny incisions can be guided to make the repair needed. It is the next breakthrough step in minimally invasive surgery and a major step up from laparoscopic procedures. (Read: Latest research and advances in cancer treatment)

When working with a da Vinci, the surgeon, a specialist not only in the use of the machine but also in his or her own field of surgery, will sit at a console where there is a 3D and 10-fold magnified view of the interiors of the body. From here, the robotic arms are controlled and the right instrument sent in to remove or repair tissue. Because it is so precise, there is less chance of collateral damage. And because the cuts and incisions needed to send the robotic arms in are so tiny, the patient doesn t have to suffer the trauma of traditional open surgery. A huge relief to just about anyone. It means negligible blood loss, less pain, quick recovery and shorter hospital stay.

Robotic surgery works best in areas involving soft tissue. It is certainly proving better than traditional surgery in many gynaecological cancers, head and neck and thoracic surgery, removal of organs such as the kidney, liver, pancreas, thyroid, prostate, and uterus, urology ailments and even organ transplants. Robotic surgery is also being used more and more for paediatric patients. In this form of surgery, suturing is flawless. The robot does not and cannot perform any surgical step, without a surgeon. The surgeon s finger movements on the console are transmitted to the robotic arms to the patient. In fact, the robot filters the minutest tremor in the surgeon s finger during surgery to make the it more precise, says Dr Hemang Bakshi, Robotic Uro-oncologist, HCG Cancer Centre Hospitals, Ahmedabad. So the success of a robotic surgical procedure primarily depends on the same parameters as a traditional open surgery - the competence and experience of the surgeon who controls the robot. Here are few reasons you could consider robotic surgeries.

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