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Tiny New Robots Perform Eye Surgery (technologyreview.com)
A tiny new Robotic Retinal Dissection Device -- nicknamed "R2D2" -- can crawl into an incision in the eye and lift a membrane no more than a hundredth of a millimeter.
"The cables that enable the robot to navigate are each 110 microns across, a little over the diameter of a human hair," reports the MIT Technology Review. The robot is controlled by a joystick (while providing a live camera feed to the ophthalmologist). In September an Oxford professor used it to perform the first operation inside the human eye, and since then five more patients have undergone robot-assisted operations at an Oxford hospital. In one procedure, a gene-therapy virus that stops retinal degeneration "was planted on the retina itself, a procedure only made possible by R2D2's unprecedented precision."
Robotic surgery is already happening. The article points out that Da Vinci, an elephant-sized surgical robot that repairs heart valves, "has operated on more than three million patients around the world." But the Oxford professor believes these tiny eye robots "will open the door to new operations for which the human hand does not have the necessary control and precision."
Robotic surgery is already happening. The article points out that Da Vinci, an elephant-sized surgical robot that repairs heart valves, "has operated on more than three million patients around the world." But the Oxford professor believes these tiny eye robots "will open the door to new operations for which the human hand does not have the necessary control and precision."
Copyright Lawsuit for Star Wars references coming to them in 3 2 1
The "robot" is used for a lot more than heart valve surgery. I think it is currently the gold standard for radical prostatectomy.
A: Takes an R2 Detour
Table-ized A.I.
Personally I'd go with "I, Robot."
/ an elephant-sized surgical robot that repairs heart valves, / Goes to an article from 2002! With an unsafe website and broken links otherwise.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
From the description its more of a waldo (remote manipulator) than a robot. There's no mention of preprogrammed autonomous action.
"First operation inside the human eye" my arse. *Every* modern cataract operation is an operation inside the eye. The membrane-peeling described in the link is a standard vitrectomy operation. I have two colleagues who between them do several a week and have done for years. So far (not very) as this is anything new at all, it is automated assistance to a human surgeon.
This is basically regurgitated publicity handout crap.
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
It created blurred vision in Washington and was implanted in the new press secretary so that the crowds he saw at the inauguration would look much bigger. The results are called "alternative vision".
yes sir i would like to have transplanted a couple fish eyes onto my dickhead so i can see if she is faking it or really does love me....and the occasionall epiglottis examination for tonsil infections.
Where does the idea that Da Vinci is "elephant sized" come from? The link is to another Slashdot summary, and most of the links are dead.
It's not exactly sleek, but from what I've seen is hardly elephant-sized. Unless you mean a baby elephant.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Why is this a big deal? It is the first robot to be used to perform surgery inside the human eye. The first procedure was a fairly vanilla case, yes, a vitrectomy (not with the robot) and an ILM peel (with the robot). It was a proof of concept. Robert MacLaren has the robot to do some far cooler stuff - creating a bleb under the retina, and adding in some of NightstaRx's viral vectors for gene therapy. To do that involves slowly pushing in fluids from what's basically a syringe, into a tiny hold that you've created. Your hand has to stay still with virtually no tremor to avoid causing damage. And the application takes minutes. It really is the surgeons with the steadiest hands in the world that can do this. The robot eliminates the tremor. And if you have to go back to the same hole and apply some more... hard. Beyond eliminating tremor (and extending the practical working life of some of the most experienced and talented surgeons by many years and enabling surgeons to work with really friable tissue), it can work in concert with advanced imaging technology, automate the drudgery of things like vitrectomy, and frankly, speed surgery while making it safer. This is huge - as there's a tsunami of baby boomers with age-related eye disease who need treating - and robotic assistants like R2D2 will be essential to deal with these people needing surgery. I covered it here: https://theophthalmologist.com... and the Preceyes Robot here: https://theophthalmologist.com... Check out Marc de Smet - he's the surgeon's that led the development of the robot.
They can't fool me, I know exactly how this procedure turns out.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
aye (aye) robot
The device filters out the movement caused by the surgeon's own heartbeat, among other benefits.
I don't know about this specific type of robots.
But other robots use in heart surgery can match the motions of the beating heart and thus perform surgery on a still beating heart.
From the surgeon's perspective on the camera, it looks as if the heart was static.
(The robot automatically compensating the heartbeat).
It's not nearly fully autonomous at all (far from that): You won't be having the surgery completely done by a preprogrammed robot doing everything. Not even some part of the surgery.
But you already have some robots that can do some automatic motions to help the surgeon.
(Also, there was some research around train surgeon on a simulation done thanks to advanced 3D medical imaging, recording some interesting parts, and being able to recall the pre-recorded parts during the actual surgery. But as far as i know, its only still research, not put into production yet.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
... can crawl into an incision in the eye and lift a membrane no more than a hundredth of a millimeter.
Is that the incision width, the lift distance limit, or the membrane thickness? A few extra words and comas -- actually in TFA -- would help:
Using a joystick and a camera feed, MacLaren guided the arm of the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device, or R2D2 for short, through a tiny incision in the eye, before lifting the wrinkled membrane, no more than a hundredth of a millimeter thick, from the retina, and reversing Beaver’s vision problems.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Fine and good. Now, let's look at outcomes before we get all wound up about it. The DaVinci experience should lead one to perhaps hit the pause button. Hundreds of these nice, expensive machines were sold. At least in the US, Medicare allows an additional payment for robotic surgery (wonder why?). Yes, DaVinci is supposed to be tracking outcomes and costs but it has been very, very slow at publishing them. The earlier studies didn't show much of an improvement.
There are lots of shiny new tech inventions in medicine that seem cool, ground breaking even and turn out to be not terribly useful.
It may well turn out for the better, but it is anything but clear that this is the case. And you wonder why medical costs are what they are.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
A human performing surgery seems cheaper than a robot. I would argue that not all human slices have to be precise. Maybe use a mediocre surgeon for opening and closing up the patient, and the specialist for the actual, precise surgery parts.
The guy was called Publilius, with two ‘li’s.
Your hand has to stay still with virtually no tremor to avoid causing damage. And the application takes minutes. It really is the surgeons with the steadiest hands in the world that can do this.
Or just get a fucking machine to hold the syringe.
Sure it starts with this device naming itself after the movie robot, but the name is so cool that everyone will be doing it. R2D2 is the new 'Smurf'.
Oh, wait... Anybody care to explain why Africans aren't inventing anything like this - EVER?
That holds the syringe in the right place with micron precision. With conventional surgery, it's not like you can let go of things like that and hand them over - even someone grabbing hold of the syringe (or whatever) can cause a tiny bit of movement - which you do not want! Ideally, the machine holds it, and positions it - like a robotic arm. Which Preceyes' robot has.
I don't want to speak for the Preceyes team, but from my conversations with them, they know what they're doing, and they've learned from Da Vinci. The use cases are very different. R2D2 isn't huuuuge and multipurpose. It's small, designed to operate only in the eye, and it's able to augment what the surgeon can do. The outcomes will come with time, but with cost, these robots might cut them. OK, it's an investment to buy/ lease the robot, and it costs to operate. But you need a sterile area to operate in. If the robot's doing the operating (on low-risk, routine procedures) and you're controlling it elsewhere, and the person's under a laminar flow hood, blowing sterile air, then you don't need an operating room (which costs lots of money to run, takes up lots of space, etc.) -- you need a laminar flow hood.
How exactly do they clean it? I have heard this has been a problem with increasingly delicate and compact instruments for some time now.
Can it be used to take out flies hatching off your eyes and other similar insects?