First robotic liver transplant in U.S. performed by Washington University surgeons

Yes, Its a milestone moment in  #MedicalRobotics Liver transplant procedure is considered complex and sensitive invasive process due to fear of excessive bleeding in removing diseased liver and requires specialized skill attaching new liver for delicately sewing several tiny blood vessels together.  Its a milestone that Robotic assisted surgery now transitions to complex liver transplants, which  from past of couple of years successfully adopted for coronary artery bypass, removal of tissues/vessels/nerves or vital organs like gallbladder, kidney removal/transplants and hip replacement.

Flip side is still poor cost-benefit ratio. It’s a fancy for hospitals to deploy Robotics surgery systems due poor business case and big no no  when considering mass adaptation and to replace traditional laparoscopy when optimization factors are not cost and time conscious ( takes similar time as traditional surgery – 8-10 hours for liver transplant ) , rather Robotic surgery tends to be more expensive ( due to monopoly market and specialized skills ) , and safety and efficacy of the procedure is almost same as traditional #laparoscopy. Link

Robotics precision

To reduce cost of robotics operation, while more system providers need to break monopoly market likes of Intuitive Surgical Devices and da Vinci Surgical Systems,  hospital need to prioritize the cases based on complexities and increase trained robotics surgeons with less experience to reduce dependencies on specialist surgeons.

All said and done, its just a matter of time, that robots surgery will get more prevalent as no one is going to just be doing bare – hard surgery 50 years from now.  Ongoing research will benefit next age with more automated gestures  increasing level of autonomy driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Other Recent Robotics Surgeries :

The Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center at the Sun Yat-sen University Robotics ophthalmic surgery by completing the world’s first remote, micron-level surgery. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/01/WS64c85c36a31035260b819998.html