What is Robotic Surgery?

Robotic surgery is a further development of minimally invasive surgery. Conventional minimally invasive surgery such as laparoscopic surgery achieves its objectives by firstly creating a positive pressure environment inside body cavities which allow surgery to take place with significant blood loss. Hand held operating instruments are introduced into the operative site within the cavity through ports placed at defined locations in the abdominal wall. These instruments need to be very long in order to reach the deep seated operative site and have limited range of operative movement which limits dexterity and maneuverability adding to technical skill demand on the surgeon. Human hands are prone to tiredness adding further to the risk of errors and complications.

Although robotic surgery stems from early field work on offsite surgery in battlefield, it has now evolved into an invaluable technical enhancement to the laparoscopic surgery. Many of the limitations or laparoscopic surgery has been addressed by the design and capability of the operating robot. The da Vinci® operating surgeon comes a high definition stereoscopic (3-D) endoscope along the surgeon to achieve clear 3-dimensional view of the operative field. Robotic operating instrument are articulated internally adding to vastly improved dexterity. These instruments are mounted on robotic arms which do not tremor and do not tire.  Control of these instruments is designed to be highly intuitive for easy learning.