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Robots to travel deeper to check and treat your innards

Robots to travel deeper to check and treat your innards

Written by Editorial Team |Published : April 5, 2014 1:55 PM IST

tiny robotImagine a tiny robot that can enter your body via small belly button precision, perform surgery and return to its base peacefully.

Such a technology is here that can benefit future astronauts and other space explorers while living at remote moon bases or mars colonies far from earth, a fascinating research suggests. The fist-sized robot has been developed by Nebraska-based Virtual Incision Corporation and researchers from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Once inside the body, the robot would inflate the patient's abdominal cavity with an inert gas to create room to work, a report in New Scientist said. Two arms tipped with multiple tools can perforate gastric ulcers, cauterise and suture wounds or perform emergency appendectomies, the report added. (Read: Soon a nano robot to transport medicines in your body!)

A human operator would control the robot using a device that has a monitor and a foot pedal. The robot would make its first zero-gravity test on parabolic flights in the coming months, Virtual Incision informed. Virtual Incision is a pioneer the field of 'in vivo robot-assisted surgery' with its development of the VIC surgical system. (Read: 10 reasons you could consider robotic surgeries)

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The advantages of assisted robotic surgeries:

1. It is highly precise

Imagine the brain of a man and the precision of a robot put together to produce the most precise surgical procedure. That is what robotic surgery allows a patient to experience. Be it a complicated cardiac surgery, urological procedure of one involving the delicate reproductive organs of a patient, robot assisted surgery cuts out some of the common side effects and risks involved in the same surgery done by the conventional method. For example, if a patient is undergoing a prostectomy, a traditional procedure would impair the man's ability to have an erection or lead a normal sexual life. In contrast, when performed with robotic surgery, this risk is negated, allowing him to go back to normal life quicker.

2. Can be used for a large variety of surgeries

Be it a urological procedure, a complicated cardiac surgery, gyenecological procedure, gastrointestinal or ENT procedure, it can be done by robotic surgery. Because of its ability to conform to any type of organ and apply the surgeon's expertise in a precise manner, robotic surgery has grown in notoriety. Major procedures such as removal of tumours, heart surgery and gynaecological surgery that would traditionally require the scalpel to make large and deep cuts in the body and consequent blood loss can now be done with robotic arms. (Read: Thyroid surgeries without scars, thanks to the Robotic Surgical Systems)

3. Is less painful

In the case of robotic assisted surgery there is no large open cut. The surgeon makes small incisions around the area to be operated upon and inserts the probes through that. Since it is minimally invasive and results in lesser pain and discomfort for the patient.

4. There is lesser blood loss

Smaller incisions mean lesser blood loss. This beats the need for blood transfusions and reduces the risk of complications due to blood loss.

5. Quicker recovery and lesser chances of infection

The small-sized incisions reduce the chances of infection greatly and reduces the healing time of the wounds drastically helping the patient get back on his/her feet at the earliest. This also directly relates to lesser hospital stay and lower dependency on other people.

6. Magnifies the area to be operated and provides the surgeon with a 3D view

The robotic system has a vision system (or an area through which the surgeon views the operating field). This vision system is equipped with a high definition, 3D endoscope (camera) that provides images of the area to be operated upon. The surgeon gets a magnified 3 dimensional view, which is 20 to 40 times better than what is seen by the naked eye, thus helping the surgeon perform more accurate operations.

7. Reduces chance of human errors

The Da Vinci robot senses the surgeon's hand movements and translates them electronically into scaled-down micro-movements to manipulate the tiny instruments. It also detects and filters out any tremors in the surgeon's hand which makes the surgery highly accurate and precise.

8. Makes the surgeon more comfortable

In surgeries that could last well beyond a large number of hours, the surgeon is comfortably seated. This beats the fatigue that one feels while standing and bending over a patient for long hours. Although this fatigue usually does not cause any serious risk to the patient, the more comfortable the surgeon is the better his performance.

9. Cheaper in India

The cost varies between Rs.60,000 and Rs.1.5 lakh (approx $1,000-$2,700), depending on the procedure. This is much cheaper when compared to the same surgery being performed abroad where it could cost upto 10 times higher. Considering only the Indian scenario, it does work out more expensive than a conventional surgery, but the benefits far outweigh the cost.

10. Available in most large hospitals in India

The robotic surgery procedure entered the Indian healthcare system a few years back. After realizing its potential, the healthcare sector has welcomed this new and improved technique with open arms. It is now available in leading hospitals like Sir Gangaram Hospital and Medanta Medicity in Delhi, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute, Mumbai and a number of other centers.

Lastly, robotic surgery has a number of benefits, but depending on the type of procedure one might need, coupled with the complexity of the case the surgeon will decide if a particular person is fit enough to undergo the procedure. (Read: Robotic surgeries the future of complicated procedures?)

With inputs from: IANS

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