OSU Medical Center On the Cutting Edge in Surgery
A 35-year-old married father of one became the first person to have robotic repair of a congenital heart defect at the OSU Heart Center last month. It took surgeons using robotic technology just over two and a half hours to close a small hole between the two upper chambers of the
patient’s heart.
In robotic surgery, only three pencil eraser-sized holes through the chest wall are needed to complete the procedure. Two holes are for a set of robotic arms and the third for a miniature camera. At a console in the operating room, the surgeon looks through a viewfinder
at magnified images transmitted from inside the chest, and uses precisely engineered finger controls to manipulate the robotic arms and their attached surgical tools. During traditional heart surgery, a six-inch, breast bone-splitting incision is made. Because a large incision is
not needed during robot-assisted procedures, patients often experience a shorter recovery period, and less pain and scarring.
