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."

Comments

I was in the room for the first surgery with R2D2

[markhillen]

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.