Robots Approved For Cardiac Surgery

An anonymous reader writes "CNN has an article up on a new robotic heart-surgery system. By making 4 relatively small incisions into the patients chest the da Vinci Surgical System, guided by real surgeons, uses its pencil sized "tools" to conduct several different heart procedures including closed-chest coronary bypass surgery. By operating on a patient with their chest closed, patient recovery times have reduced from weeks to just days. Despite the robotic surgery taking longer than traditional operations, this reduced recovery times makes the robotic surgery cost less overall than traditional open heart surgery. Fortunately, if anything goes wrong with the robot, the human surgeons can jump right in and pick up where the robot has stopped. Already the robot (in place in over 130 hospitals world wide) has been FDA approved for Mitral Valve repair surgery. More insightful info on the da Vinci System here." It's not the first such system, either.

Comments

Is this a robot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is this a human surgeon performing surgery with a very sophisticated set of tools? I know the word 'robot' makes for good headlines. Does an RC Car qualify as a robot? It does in "Robot Wars".

Other problems?

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

A lot of times when doctors go to operate on someone with heart problems, they discover other defects or abnormalities with the heart and surrounding vessels. Will a robotic system that is minimally invasive create "tunnel vision" so that doctors are unable to see other potential problems?

Re:Hmm

[killthiskid]

What do you think is scarier, having your chest peeled open like a book, or the alternative. As someone whose father just recently went through open heart surgery, I can say the process would be nerve racking either way.

And while the surgery is bad, the recovery is probably worse. Painful, long, and frustrating. Anything that can shorten the recovery process is a wonderful thing, IMHO.

I'd prefer...

[fireboy1919]

"...it better not have any software."

When it comes to something that needs to be that robust, I want a control system consisting of highly reliable real-time (not pseudo-realtime like embedded distros) microcontrollers.

I want parts designed to last 20 years, not something that could fail in one due to a motherboard failure, or at any time due to a hard drive failure. Software just doesn't cut it here.

Re:I hate to be the guy who points this out, but

[Idarubicin]

The article you cite states unequivocally that preliminary investigations found no mechanical fault in the device. If the reports indicated that the robot's arms spontaneously began making stabbing motions without input from the surgeon, then it would be important for the news outlets to report this incident. Surgeons can make mistakes, whether they are working with their own hands or controlling robotic ones.

I, for one, would much prefer to be operated on using this new system--the electronics damp out tremors, and I don't have to worry about a surgeon sneezing and lacerating my intestine. The trauma of major incisions is eliminated, saving me from weeks of hospital food, pain meds, and severe scarring.

Surgeons will take time to become accustomed to this new system. Without a gaping incision, it is harder to see what's going on. There are new failure modes possible. A nick in the aorta is immediately obvious in conventional surgery, not so much so under these conditions. There may also be a 'novelty' penalty. This is a new technique, so there aren't really any experts in the field who have performed thousands of procedures with these devices. There is a learning curve.

Nevertheless, medical decisions are usually made on the basis of a risk calculation. If there are fewer overall complications and deaths, then I'll accept 10 robot-related deaths per year in exchange for the prevention of 100 lethal post-op infections due to poor wound healing.