Clinical Automation and Robotics in Cardiac Surgery
The popularity of minimally invasive surgery has increased significantly in recent years and offers significant advantages over traditional methods in many surgical procedures. This rapid growth has been made possible by significant advances in medical technology. Artificial intelligence-based automation and robotics such as the DaVinci robotic approach have partially solved some of the technical and clinical challenges associated with minimally invasive techniques.
Challenges that still limit the widespread adoption of some applications include field of view limitations, decreased operability of equipment, lack of tactile feedback, loss of depth perception, and prolonged learning curve. This results in longer surgical times and higher economic costs.
This review discusses some of the recent major technological advances that have facilitated the adoption of minimally invasive surgery, focusing on the fields of imaging, cameras, and robotics. It also identifies the current limitations of cutting-edge technology and suggests future research directions to overcome them.
Today, many patients and surgeons prefer less invasive approaches to the surgical site and the minimally invasive non-robotic cardiac surgery has paved the way for the use of surgical robotics by bringing about changes in surgical techniques, instruments, visualization methods, cardiopulmonary perfusion techniques, and most importantly the posture of surgeons. This article describes in detail the serial development of robot-assisted heart surgery from its inception to its clinical application.
There are references to historical and recent clinical series that have provided us with evidence that robotic heart surgery is safe and provides excellent results. To this end, these procedures have become the new medical standard in many institutions.
Source Article: Historical evolution of robot-assisted cardiac surgery: a 25-year journey
Recommended Readings:
- A systematic review of robotic surgery: From supervised paradigms to fully autonomous robotic approaches
- Robotic-Assisted Solutions for Invasive Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery and Routine On-Ward Tasks: A Narrative Review
- Efficacy and safety of robotic assisted versus median sternotomy for cardiac surgery: results from a university affiliated hospital
