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Posted on Sep 22, 2002, 12 p.m.
By Bill Freeman
Patients who are set to undergo open-heart surgery prefer to be operated on by robot-assisted surgeons instead of the 100% human variety, according to a robotics expert. Speaking at a recent "Robotics in Cardiac Surgery" conference in London experts told delegates that the $1-million robots, called da Vinci and Zeus, more than halves the amount of time a patient has to stay in hospital following bypass surgery.
Patients who are set to undergo open-heart surgery prefer to be operated on by robot-assisted surgeons instead of the 100% human variety, according to a robotics expert. Speaking at a recent "Robotics in Cardiac Surgery" conference in London experts told delegates that the $1-million robots, called da Vinci and Zeus, more than halves the amount of time a patient has to stay in hospital following bypass surgery. The average stay after robot-assisted surgery is 3.9-days, compared to 8-days following traditional surgery. The robots replace the surgeon's hands with robotic arms that can carry out all the actions of a human cardiac surgeon through tiny pen-sized holes - a human surgeon typically makes incisions that are 15-centimetres long.
SOURCE/REFERENCE: Reported by www.reutershealth.com on the 19th June 2001
