Robotic heart surgery. (Technology).Surgeons in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of have used an experimental robotic system robotic system An integrated system of devices that automate production and manufacturing of goods and services Surgery An AI-based surgical assistant system, which processes sensory input from haptic interfaces and/or allows surgeons to act with more accuracy than to operate on the hearts of 17 patients. The million-dollar device has three arms that hold tiny surgical instruments A surgical instrument is a specially designed tool or device for performing specific actions of carrying out desired effects during a surgery or operation, such as modifying biological tissue, or to provide access or viewing it. , as well as cameras to give the surgeons a three-dimensional view of an area of heart tissue. The technique requires only a small incision. Rather than cutting through muscle and bone to reach the heart, the physician-researchers inserted the robotic arms through 8-to-10-millimeter-long incisions. The surgeons used the system's instruments to repair a small opening between the two upper chambers of the patients' hearts, which had had the defect since birth. The procedure was successful in all the patients, says Michael Argenziano Michael Argenziano, MD is the director of Minimally Invasive and Robotic Cardiac Surgery and the Director of the Surgical Arrhythmia Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. "Robotic heart surgery is just the next step in the progression of less-invasive heart surgery," says Argenziano. On average, the patients stayed in the hospital for just 3 days, which is 2 to fewer days than would be expected if they had undergone traditional open-heart surgery open-heart surgery Any surgical procedure opening the heart and exposing one or more of its chambers, most often to repair valve disease or correct congenital heart malformations (see congenital heart disease). , says Argenziano. The robotic surgery took slightly longer than open-heart surgery but was less painful and less stressful. A German team reported using the same kind of system to perform heart-bypass surgery--replacing clogged arteries in the heart--on 50 patients through 6-to-8-centimeter incisions in the chest. Most of these patients had diabetes, but they had fewer infections and other complications than would have been expected in people with that disease who undergo bypass surgery Bypass surgery A surgical procedure that grafts blood vessels onto arteries to reroute the blood flow around blockages in the arteries (arteriosclerosis). . One person died of pneumonia 2 weeks after surgery. "Smaller incisions mean less pain, shorter recovery time, and greater patient acceptance," says Argenziano.--D. C. |
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