Arthroscopic knee surgery has just been seriously upstaged by the closed-chest, beating-heart bypass, performed through a 1-cm incision. After a successful debut in Germany, the da Vinci Surgical System has entered clinical trials in the USfor this procedure; FDA approval is expected sometime next year.
The equipment, developed by Intuitive Surgical (www.intuitivesurgical.com), lets surgeons cut, clamp, suture, and cauterize from across the operating room, sitting at a console with a hi-res 3-D monitor and joystick controllers that manipulate the robotic arms above the operating table.
"The da Vinci 'endowrist' lets me suture with improved accuracy and visibility," says Robert Tranbaugh, a cardiac surgeon at New York's Beth Israel hospital. The system sharpens his accuracy so much, in fact, that the right-handed Tranbaugh can suture with his left hand. "I've been cautious about widespread use of minimally invasive procedures," he adds. "But the operating room of the future will need these technologies."
ELECTRIC WORD
The Mirror Hack'd
Eye of the Needle
Vanishing Act
Visualize World Geeks
Habitrail for Humanity
Ultra-Magnetism
