NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Micro-surgeries requiring incredible precision can now be performed by robots. A demonstration of robotic surgical precision was featured recently at symposiums held in Barcelona and Tokyo.
"The main purpose of the computer-controlled system is the connection of micro-blood vessels," according to a paper presented at the recent Fifth International Symposium on Experimental Robotics held in Barcelona, Spain.
At that meeting, a robot demonstrated the ability to first pass a thread through the eye of a microscopic needle, and then successfully sutured an artery drawn from the abdomen of a rat.
Such minute surgeries are both tricky and time-consuming for human surgeons. For example, the surgical reconnection of the countless blood vessels torn apart after an the accidental amputation of a limb "is currently treated surgically by a medical doctor's hands under the microscope, placing an extreme burden in stress and time on the doctor," according to the paper.
Experts believe using robots for such surgeries could reduce the risk of errors while freeing surgeons to direct the operation by remote control.
In some cases, 'remote' could even mean another city. Dr. Hajime Inoue, professor at Okayama University Orthopedics Department in Okayama, Japan, recently demonstrated robotic surgery at a meeting of the Japan Operation Medicine Society. He was able to successfully manipulate a robot in the city of Okayama from a Tokyo University lab room located 700 kilometers away in Tokyo. The robot flawlessly passed a tiny thread through an artificial blood vessel measuring less than 1 millimeter in diameter.
