A breakthrough in the surgical robotics has been made by the developers of the HeroSurg surgical robot. The robot will give a sense of touch to the surgeons during the keyhole surgical procedure.
The current laparoscopic or keyhole surgery technique limit the operation to the sense of sight. HeroSurg will enable the doctors to use their sense of touch to detect the region they are operating in, thus making the overall procedure safer and reduce the risk of any complications like infection or blood loss.
HeroSurg was engineered by the researchers from the Deakin University, Australia and the Harvard University. Suren Krishnan from the Royal Adelaide Hospital helped the research teams in improving the accuracy of the robotic surgical system.
Krishnan said that the lack of tactile feedback is one of the significant shortcomings of the existing keyhole surgical systems. HeroSurg will use the haptic technology to introduce the sense of touch in the system.
“Tactile feedback allows a surgeon to differentiate between tissues and to ‘feel’ delicate tissues weakened by infection or inflammation and dissect them more carefully. Tactile feedback will allow us to use finer and more delicate sutures in microsurgery.”
The introduction of haptic technology will enhance the accuracy of the system, enabling it to differentiate between the cancerous tissues and the normal ones easily. The Harvard scholar Mohsen Moradi Dalvand said that the accurate diagnoses and manoeuvres could now be performed precisely owing to the haptic technology.
“HeroSurg’s unique features which allow it to overcome many of the limitations of existing robotic laparoscopic systems, include collision avoidance capability, modularity and automatic patient/bed adjustment. The automatic collision avoidance enables surgeons to operate with peace of mind and confidence that there will be no collision with instruments, the robot’s arms, or the laparoscope with the patient.”
The innovative new laparoscopic robot surgeon comes with high-resolution 3D images enabling the correct identification of the relative positioning of the laparoscope and the organ/tissue. The HeroSurg also provides an increased range of motion to the surgeon transforming the workstation into an ergonomic console.
“HeroSurg will assist surgeons to perform demanding surgical procedures with comfort, accuracy and safety by providing real-time collision avoidance for medical instruments, and stereo-endoscopic vision.”
HeroSurg would revolutionise the robotic surgical systems and enable the surgeons sitting thousands of kilometres away from the actual theatre perform the surgeries accurately.