Technology - Robitic surgery

Robotic Surgery :

Surgical procedures today are commonly divided into three categories based on the technology used and their underlying efficiency.

The first generation of surgery, open surgery, remains the predominant form of surgery and is still used in almost every area of the body. However, the large incisions required for open surgery create significant trauma to the patient, resulting in long hospitalization and recovery times, as well as significant pain and suffering.

Over the past few decades the second generation of surgery, Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) has reduced the trauma to the patients by allowing some surgeries to be performed through small ports rather than large incisions, resulting in shorter recovery time, fewer complications and reduced hospitalization costs. MIS surgery has been widely adapted for certain surgical procedures. However in case of complex surgical procedures tissue manipulations such as dissecting and structuring require precise operations, which is difficult to perform using MIS surgery.

Robotic surgery is the third generation surgery and overcomes many of the shortfalls of both open surgery and MIS surgery. Robotic Surgery allows surgeons to operate while being seated comfortably at a console viewing a bright and sharp 3-D image of the surgical field. This immersive visualization results in surgeons no longer feeling disconnected from the surgical field and the instruments, as they do while performing an MIS surgery.

In India the prevalence of Robotic Surgery is limited to only a few cases. The Robotic surgery system is expensive and these procedures are expensive and their availability is restricted to two centers in New Delhi.

CARE Foundation has undertaken development of indigenous technology for robotic surgery systems. It is envisaged that such systems would be required at large number of hospitals when minimum invasive surgeries will replace the current procedures in the next one decade.

The Foundation has imported and installed state-of-the-art robotic surgery equipment "da Vinci" with financial assistance from ICICI-TI Program A collaborative program with Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad is on to develop prototype sub systems.

Go Back