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Your robot surgeon will see you now

Autonomous systems are beginning to equal human specialists at precision surgical tasks.
  1. Elizabeth Svoboda

    1. Elizabeth Svoboda is a science journalist in San Jose, California.

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An assistant readies the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot to perform intestinal anastomosis — an awkward surgical procedure involving intricate movements. Credit: Michael Kam, Univ. Maryland

One of the most potentially disruptive innovations in medicine is a faceless white robotic cylinder about the size of a breath mint, attached to the end of a catheter. On an operating table at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts, researchers are showing how it can navigate to a patient’s leaking heart valve better than some surgeons can with years of training. First, the assembly is inserted into the base of the heart. From there, it propels itself using a motorized drive system along the pulsating ventricular wall to a damaged valve near the top of the ventricle, guided by vision and touch sensors. The robot wedges itself into position near the leaking valve. A surgeon then takes over to launch an occluder — a minuscule stopper — from the robot that plugs the leak.

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Nature 573, S110-S111 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02874-0

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Digital health, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

References

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