COVID-19 has impacted every sector of the world’s economy including healthcare. Along with frontline workers, healthcare workers have also been majorly exposed to the maximum risk of the deadly virus. Due to the COVID-19, elective surgeries have been canceled by the majority of the hospitals to reduce the direct contact of surgeons with the patients. As a result, both patients and hospitals are bearing a heavy loss. And there comes the robotic surgery in rescue wherein there is no fear of social contacting with the patients by the doctors. In this article, we are focusing on FAQs on robotic surgery along with how this market has been affected by COVID-19.
Content
Section -I
- What is the history of robotic surgery?
- Is robotic surgery better than traditional surgery?
- What are the risks of robotic surgery?
- What is MAKOplasty?
- What is a CMR robot?
Section -II
What is the impact of COVID-19 on robotic surgery?
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the history of robotic surgery?
The actual idea behind the robotic surgery was to conduct the surgery remotely without getting near to the patients. Here are the further details.
- The first surgical robots were the Arthobot which were capable of positioning the patients during orthopedic surgery by using voice commands. They were made and used for the first time in Vancouver, BC, Canada in 1983.
- After few years, on 11th April 1985, Unimation Puma 200, an industrial robot, was used by Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in California used to orient a needle for brain biopsy.
- In 1996, the Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning (AESOP) introduced a complete robotic surgical system, named ZEUS, with 7 degrees of freedom, motion scaling, and tremor elimination. ZEUS attempted its first surgery (laparoscopic cholecystectomy) in France while the surgeons were located in New York.
- Another breakthrough was the Da Vinci robotic surgery/Da Vinci surgical system which was approved by the FDA in 2000. It was capable of doing minimally invasive surgery where the surgeons controlled the process from a console.
- Today, there have been many other robots developed that can assist in surgery and are commercially available for various surgical procedures across different domains.
Is robotic surgery better than traditional surgery?
Robotic surgery has various advantages and that’s why it is better than traditional surgery. Have a look!
- With less tissue damage while attempting robotic surgery, patients recover faster.
- As incisions are very small, hence, patients feel less pain during the robotic surgery, and chances of getting infection after the surgery also reduce.
- Doctors get access to real images of the operating area as a high-resolution camera is used during robotic surgery. This helps the doctor(s) in taking better decisions.
- As there is very minimal loss of blood during robotic surgery, hence, blood transfusion also gets reduced.
- With the help of robots, complex surgeries can be done which is difficult to do with traditional surgeries.
- The patient’s stay–time in the hospital also gets reduced in the case of robotic surgery.
- Last but not the least, the precision achieved during robotic surgery is very high compared to traditional surgery.
What are the risks of robotic surgery?
Robotic surgery is safe, but not 100%. Having said that, the percentage of risk involved in robotic surgery is very low compared to traditional surgery.
- There are minimal chances of getting a small infection after the surgery.
- Alike traditional surgery, there are chances that after the robotic surgery, bleeding can happen which can result in breathing problems as well.
What is MAKOplasty?
Makoplasty is a partial knee resurfacing procedure done with the help of a robotic arm. The robotic arm helps the patients by relieving them from pain caused by joint degeneration due to osteoarthritis. During Makoplasty, the surgeon focus on resurfacing the knee by selectively targeting the part of the knee damaged by osteoarthritis. It is beneficial as during the whole process the healthy bone and ligaments remain untouched.
What is a CMR robot?
CMR Surgical is a company based in Impington which produces a robotic surgery system known as Versius. The company got established in 2014. The Versius is famous because it is the first-ever robot that performs Minimal Access Surgery (MAS/laparoscopic/keyhole surgery). MAS is basically the abdominal operation done with small incisions of 1 cm – 1.5 cm in length. It brings lots of advantages such as reduced stay in the hospital, reduced rate of infection and scarring, reduced after-surgery pain, and increased recovery speed.
IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON ROBOTIC SURGERY
The following table will give you a gist of how robotic surgery has been impacted with the COVID-19. Have a look!
| S. No. | Basis of Comparision | Pre-COVID | Impact of COVID |
| 1. | Demand | Pre-COVID the robotic surgery was less opted by the patients compared to post-covid. | To follow the social distancing, robotic surgery has come as a boon. Hospitals are seeing an increased demand for robotic surgery due to the various benefits it offers. |
| 2. | Telemedicine | Pre-COVID, assistance through telemedicine was negligible. | Post-COVID, telemedicine has proved to be beneficial as the non-emergent operations were put on hold to curb the spread of COVID-19. With the help of telemedicine, non-emergency patients are being evaluated, assessed, and counseled remotely. Also, when the non-emergent surgeries will start, these patients would have already done with their pre-operative requirements. |
| 3. | Market Size | Surgical robots market was growing. | Surgical robots market declined by 7.7% from 2019 to 2020 majorly because of the closure of elective surgeries. |
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