A team of researchers at the University of Baltimore say their robot was able to perform a complicated and delicate surgical procedure on a pig without the assistance of humans. The robot appeared to do the job better than human surgeons. The Da Vinci system is still controlled by a human surgeon, despite the fact that the use of robots in the operating room isn't new. The STAR system being developed is different from the other ones. The first robotic system to plan, adapt, and execute a surgical plan in soft tissue without human intervention is called STAR. Even with some human input, STAR can perform important surgical tasks as well as or even better than human surgeons. In their latest research, published Wednesday in Science Robotics, they present data showing that STAR can autonomously perform a complex soft tissue surgery in pigs. If part of the intestine were to be removed to treat a tumor, the procedure known as small intestine anastomosis would need to be performed. Even a tiny mistake can leave behind leaks, which is why it is a surgery that requires finesse and precision. Soft tissue can be difficult to work with since it can move around in the body.
The robot seemed to pass with flying colors in the tests. STAR's suturing and stitches were found to be more accurate and consistent than data obtained from humans. There were no leaks in the pigs.
Automating STAR required several innovations. Standard surgical tools need to be modified to be used by STAR. The robot had to be equipped with a combination of cameras in order to reconstruct a three-dimensional image of the surgical site, and it required programming to create a surgical plan that could be adjusted as needed to account for things like tissue obstructions. The results show that building an autonomously operated surgical robot is more than possible and that it is not just a figment of one's imagination.
For the foreseeable future, STAR and similar robots will continue to work as assistants to human surgeons. This could be an important step forward for making surgeries safer, by allowing surgeons to better standardize tricky operations like an anastomosis, a task that has been performed over a million times in the U.S. annually. Krieger and his team hope that systems like STAR can be used to improve other soft tissue procedures. They envision a future where robotic surgery systems could help treat patients outside of a normal hospital setting, for example in trauma situations on the way to the hospital.
The team plans to upgrade STAR even more. The robot had to place markers along the pig's tissues in order to track it. They are working on a markerless approach that will make the robot's cameras less bulky and surgical planning simpler.
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