Last weekend, I attended a conference entitled 'Stanford Medical Innovation Conference on Medical Robotics'. Fueled and invigorated after a free morning bagel and coffee (report time was 8:30am on a Saturday morning), I put my networking hat on and resolved to make the most of this day-long event.
The keynote address was given by Dr. Frederic Moll, founder and CEO of Intuitive Surgical. He effectively summarized the role of robotics in improving the field of medicine. Opening up a host of possibilities, medical robotics has the potential to make surgical procedures faster and easier.
A problem in medicine today is the chasm that separates good surgeons from average surgeons. Robotics introduces a high degree of standardization across the spectra of surgeon skill and experience, which will help level the playing field and enhance predictability.
Robotics enables greater precision. Accuray's 'Cyberknife' is a radiosurgery system that allows radiation to be delivered to cancerous cells with sub-millimeter accuracy. Intuitive Surgical's 'DaVinci' allows surgeons' movements to be scaled down, filtered and seamlessly translated to movements of the robot.
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The Cyberknife
The Da Vinci Robot
Robotics can also allow procedures to be less invasive. One robot hailing from Carnegie Mellon University, aptly named the 'Heartlander', is essentially a worm-like device that is inserted via small incision below the ribcage, adheres to and crawls along the heart surface, is controlled via a joystick interface, and is used to place electrodes, ablate (destroy) tissue and inject drugs. Because general anesthesia is not required, this robot could enable heart surgery to be performed in an outpatient (out of the hospital) setting for the first time.
The Heartlander
In addition to hearing about these robotics systems, it was great to get my hands on some prototypes during the demo session and get face to face with some leaders in this exciting area of work.
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