BY TOM BALDWIN
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
NEWARK-- Steady is the hand of
the surgeon -- one hopes.
That is precisely one of the
benefits springing from what surgeons call a development
in their toil -- a new robot to perform surgery.
The idea of robotic surgery began
years ago when the Pentagon explored technology
hoping to enable surgeons behind lines of combat
to treat battlefield wounds.
Now, the forefront --"cutting
edge" is just too apt a cliche here -- of that
thinking exists in Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.
There, Dr. Dennis Bordan, chairman
of the surgery department, said the robotics of
the latest da Vinci Surgical Systems advance surgery
as much as did anesthesia and antibiotics.
"Even preceding 'doing' is to
'do no harm,'" Bordan emphasized.
Today's trend, urged on by medicine
and demanded by patients, is minimally invasive
surgery. Incisions are smaller, so the scar is
reduced. Pain can be less. Patients usually mend
faster.
The latest version of the da
Vinci fills that bill, say surgeons who are using
Beth Israel's newest da Vinci. It is one of only
three in the nation, with the others being at Methodist
Hospital in Houston and at the manufacturer's Sunnyvale,
Calif., headquarters.
The name, by the way, comes from
Leonardo da Vinci, the genius Italian artist and
scholar of the late 1400s who theorized about robots.
The da Vinci enhances the surgeon's
handiwork as well as vision.
As Bordan said, "The surgeon
now has a three-dimensional view of what he or
she is doing. Depth perception is part of the surgical
repertoire. The instruments used in the robot are
articulated just like the human hand and wrist."
He added that the machine is
decidedly more steady than even the most assured
surgical hands, though this may not be visible
to the human eye.
"It's a big deal," said Bordan.
He said, "One of the great operations
for this technology has been prostate surgery,"where
one slightly errant snip means erectile failure.
The surgeon works on a console,
gazing into a screen. The robot maneuvers at the
surgeon's command, baring cutting tools and snips,
above the patient.
In theory, the patient could
be miles away, such as on a battlefield, or even
aboard a space station. "That eventually is going
to come," Bordan said.
The surgeon sees a magnified,
three-dimensional view of the patient's insides,
moving the robot by way of grip controls.
"It translates the movement of
the surgeon through some instruments into the patient,"said
Bordan. "Nothing is interceding that is computerized."
The robotics can make twists
and turns impossible for the human hand, but it
can do nothing the surgeon does not do. In other
words, there is no computer program to do the surgery.
Training on the $1.5 million
robot, which Beth Israel offers, is a challenge.
Bordan said doctors have to be
proficient in the particular type of surgery. They
then watch da Vinci procedures. They take a course
to learn how to manipulate the controls. They practice
on animals. Then they work under a proctor.
An earlier da Vinci system appeared
in 2000 and is widely used. This new version is
less than a year on the market.
Surgeons use it for heart, prostate,
oncology, obstetrical, gynecological and head-neck
procedures.
Publication: Daily Record (Parsippany, NJ)
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