Dive Brief:
- A research team from Johns Hopkins University and the Children's National Health System have developed an autonomous robot, S.T.A.R. (Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot), that has been shown in a study to be superior in soft tissue surgery compared to other surgical techniques.
- By developing special imaging tools and an autonomous suturing algorithm, the team was able to compare the outcome of their system to manual laparoscopic surgery and robot-assisted surgery - theirs proved superior to both.
- The study results "demonstrate the potential for autonomous robots to improve the efficacy, consistency, functional outcome, and accessibility of surgical techniques," the authors concluded.
Dive Insight:
Although the study proved the technology holds promise, it will take years before it's actually used in operating rooms. What sets this robotic system apart is that it's autonomous. Current robotic-assisted surgeries are still controlled by surgeons and haven't been shown to improve outcomes compared to standard surgical methods.
However, if robots could perform a part of surgery like suturing autonomously, it could reduce human errors and their resulting complications, speed up surgery times, and according to the study authors - improve consistency.
Soft tissue is especially difficult for robots because it's difficult to differentiate between different tissues and adjust as they change shape. The S.T.A.R. team was able to circumvent this via development of two imaging tools that track the tissue's changing shapes in 3-D. This enabled the robot to determine which tissues to suture.
The technology only made a few suturing mistakes in connecting bowel tissue in four live pigs but took several times longer than a human surgeon who make zero mistakes suturing by hand. However, the researchers were not concerned with the time factor, just that the robot could perform the task.
The team has filed several patent applications for the platform and said it could initially be used to remove gallbladders and appendix.