da Vinci Si Surgical System Overview

The da Vinci Si surgical system lets doctors at Children's Hospital operate in 3D

da Vinci Si Surgical System Overview Nick Barber: A hospital operating room isn’t somewhere you’d expect to see a robot. But during a procedure at Children’s Hospital, Boston on Tuesday, that’s just exactly what was there. A team of surgeons and nurses performed a urethral re-implantation on 17-year-old girl using a da Vinci SI surgical system which includes a dual-console control unit and a multi-armed robot. Surgeons say the robot is less invasive and recovery time is faster that traditional open surgery. Hiep Nguyen: And if she had this surgery, she would probably be in the hospital about four or five days and have a longer recovery time. But with the minimal invasive surgery provided by the robot, she was able to leave in one day, resume normal activity in one to two days, and then go back to school and regular activity within seven days. Nick Barber: Before the robot can be used, surgeons make a few incisions in the patient’s abdomen, including one in the navel. The tools and cameras are inserted through these holes. The doctors sitting at the control console several feet away can see a 3D view of the area, thanks to the robot’s stereoscopic cameras. There are several HD monitors throughout the operating room to view what the controller sees. For this procedure, doctor—wasn’t running the robot. He stayed close to the patient and guided a colleague who had been trained on the system. Hiep Nguyen: Okay, so what we need now to do is dissect the crotch out a little bit more. So what I’m going to do is suck out the bladder. And that’s going to expose for you the crotch a little bit better, okay? Nick Barber: The doctor controlling the robot can make use of the machine’s different tools that allow him to grab, cut, and quarterize parts of the body. Since 2001, Children’s has been using an older model of the robot, but recently upgraded. The newer robot is smaller and more maneuverable. It also offers two control consoles. Hiep Nguyen: So much more complex surgery we can now de with the two console versus the one console. In addition, when we’re training physicians such as residents, and fellows, and even other attending physicians, it’s nice to have a console that I could immediately take over in case something is going wrong. If there is any emergency, it is so much quicker for me to be able to take instruments away, and for me to control the robot directly. The third benefit of this dual system is that we’re going to be able to remotely control the robot, so we’ll be able to control robots in another country, and this allows us to really spread our expertise around the world, not just in our local area. Nick Barber: Doctor—said that remote surgery has happened already, but that further technology needs to be developed to make the process more seamless. He said that another one of the challenges with robotic surgery is explaining to the parents of patients that it’s not the robot working autonomously on their child since a surgeon is always in control. The hospital found that robotic surgery is 10% less expensive than open or traditional surgery. That’s because recovery time is less, and patients are out of the hospital sooner, which frees up resources. That doesn’t mean that the robot is cheap, though. While the hospital found that robotic surgery, in the long run, is cheaper than open surgery, the Da Vinci robot and console still costs 2.4 million US Dollars. Reporting from the Children’s Hospital Boston OR, I’m Nick Barber, IDG News Service.