Mechanical Arms to Help in Surgery

Most of the time man need a helping hand and no matter it’s of a robot!!

A mechanical arm as it is defined is a robotic, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm. The links of such a manipulator are connected by joints allowing either rotational motion (such as in an articulated robot) or translational (linear) displacement.

Surgeons in the US have pioneered the use of a mechanical arm laden with sensors to track the positions of their surgical instruments while they operate on patients' brains. The sensor arm allows them to watch their manoeuvres live in three dimensions on a video monitor. This system and other robotic devices developed or under development by companies such as Computer Motion (Santa Barbara, CA) and Integrated Surgical Systems (Davis, CA) have the potential to revolutionize surgery and the operating room. They provide surgeons with the precision and dexterity necessary to perform complex, minimally invasive surgical (MIS) procedures.

James Zinreich and colleagues at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution in Baltimore have used the sensor arm successfully in five operations to remove deepseated brain tumours, and they are now adapting the system for sinus surgery.
In the US, 38 million people suffer chronic inflammation of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses. Although sinus surgery using a fibre-optic endoscope inserted through the nostril to see inside the sinus has become commonplace, the small size of the endoscope restricts the surgeon's field of view to between 1 and 2 centimetres.

 

Manufacturers believe that their products will broaden the scope and increase the effectiveness of MIS; improve patient outcomes; and create a safer, more efficient, and more cost-effective operating room. It is the vision of these companies that robotic systems will one day be applicable to all surgical specialties, although it is too early to tell the full extent to which they'll be used.

Surgical robotics manufacturers working toward FDA approval of their devices are encouraged by Intuitive Surgical's recent FDA approval. "The future looks bright," says Yulun Wang, MD, founder and chief technical officer of Computer Motion. "This approval sends a positive signal to industry, and there are tremendous opportunities."