Tallying the Mistakes and Malfunctions of Robot Surgeons

An anonymous reader writes: El Reg reports on a new study (PDF) that looked into malfunction and injury reports for medical procedures that used robot surgeons. From 2007 to 2013, 1.74 million such procedures were carried out, 86% of which were related to urology and gynecology. Of those, the study looked at reports of "adverse events," which were sent to the FDA. In that time period, there were 144 deaths, 1,391 patient injuries, and 8,061 device malfunctions. The malfunctions included "falling of burnt/broken pieces of instruments into the patient (14.7%), electrical arcing of instruments (10.5%), unintended operation of instruments (8.6%), system errors (5%), and video/imaging problems (2.6%)."

The more complicated surgeries involving vital organs were naturally the most dangerous. Head and neck surgeries accounted for 19.7% of all adverse results, and cardiothoracic procedures accounted for 6.4%. The much more common urology and gynecology procedures had adverse event rates of 1.4% and 1.9%. The researchers are quick to note that despite the high number of malfunctions, a vastly higher number of robotic procedures went off without a hitch. They say increased adoption of these techniques will go a long way toward resolving bugs and device failures.

Comments

Not robotic surgeons.

[demonlapin]

They're remote manipulator arms, not "robot surgeons".

COMAPRISON REQUIRED

[gurps_npc]

Knowing a single error rate is not helpful. You need to be able to compare it with something.

In this case, we obviously need to know the error rate for normal surgeries.

It might be that the 'high' rate for robot surgery is in fact low when compared to non-robot surgery.

Re:COMAPRISON REQUIRED

[Sun]

No, that is the correct comparison.

You, as a patient, need to know whether to consent to a robot operated procedure, or whether to insist on a human surgeon. When you sign the dotted line, that is precisely the comparison you need.

Shachar