Will Single Port Robots Revive the Perineal Radical Prostatectomy?

Designing a robotic-assisted surgery system that brings four robotic arms through a single 25mm port was far from an easy feat for Intuitive Surgical. In a recent interview with MD+DI, Intuitive's chief operating officer described it as a tremendous learning challenge that took the company on a 12-year journey.  But now that the da Vinci SP is on the market, the single-port system has the potential to revive a prostatectomy procedure that has been nearly abandoned as an open surgery. A long time ago, prostatectomy was done through the perineum by making a small incision between the patient's legs, which had the benefit of avoiding the bowels and not having to go through the abdomen, explained Jihad Kaouk, MD, professor of surgery and director of the Center for Robotic and Image Guided Surgery in the Glickman Urologic and Kidney Institute at Cleveland Clinic. "When it was done many years ago open it was cumbersome to do, and that's why it was almost abandoned," Kaouk told MD+DI.  "So this new system, requiring only a tiny incision to insert all instruments, gives us a revived hope that we may again revisit the perineum approach from between the legs, and that's where the procedure becomes significantly less morbid and patients will enjoy a quicker recovery. So that is the potential of this system down the road." For now, Kaouk and his team at Cleveland Clinic are just beginning to use the da Vinci SP system clinically so they are...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Business Source Type: news