Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Robotic Surgery On a Beating Heart

Posted by kdawson on from the got-a-good-beat-you-can-dance-to-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Serious heart surgery usually involves stopping the organ and keeping the patient alive with a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. But this risks brain damage and requires a long recuperation. Scientists at Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston have now developed a device that lets surgeons operate on a beating heart with a steady hand. The 'robotic' device uses 3-D ultrasound images to predict and compensate for the motion of the heart so that the surgeon can work on a faulty valve as it moves. The approach should improve recovery times and give a surgeon instant feedback on the success of the procedure, the researchers say. Here's a (slightly gory) video of the device in action."

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. What if something goes wrong? by WarJolt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The software can predict where heart tissue will be approximately 70 to 100 milliseconds in the future, so the position of the tip of the handheld surgical tool can be adjusted accordingly.

    In surgery there is always a potential for something to go wrong. Can the software compensate for cardiac arrhythmias which are inherently unpredictable?

    Surgeons typically respond better than machines to unpredicted circumstances.

    1. Re:What if something goes wrong? by WarJolt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Though machines are more precise, we would need someone to blame if something went wrong. How could you tell someone that your son, daughter or husband would of lived if it was a surgeons hands instead of a machine.
      Airplanes can fly and land more precisely always on autopilot. All the human carrying ones still have pilots behind on-board because we still need someone to blame in case it crashes. We need a soul in control of the machine that has control over our lives. It's just too freaky not to. It may make things more safe, but be careful not to automate too much as computers have never been show to have the decision making skills of people

  2. Human surgeons are buggy too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What are the repercussions if your human surgeon has a transient ischemic attack during surgery?