ABSTRACT
Figure 4.1 Laparoscopic surgical procedure. Robot-assisted surgery has introduced a new era of minimally invasive surgical procedures and is going to revolutionize the entire field of conventional open surgery by introducing methods that are far less invasive and by offering many fundamental clinical improvements that are outstanding for both patients and surgeons. Robots are also being used more to help with laparoscopic surgeries. Significant research has been conducted on the utilization of robots in surgical procedures, the outcome of which has been verified by testing commercial and noncommercial robotic surgical systems. Horgan and Vanuno (2001) published a technical report on the use of robotic systems in laparoscopy in which they concluded that robot-assisted operations are safer and more effective as compared to conventional laparoscopic procedures. Russell H. Taylor and Dan Stoianovici (2003) provide a comprehensive review of robotic surgical systems developed. Sabharwal, Pradhan, and Kumar (2006) evaluated the da Vinci® surgical robot for use in urology, more specifically radical prostatectomy, renal surgery, and adrenalectomy. Their study shows that the da Vinci® system could successfully be
utilized in urological surgeries and has led to a set of standards for robot-assisted operations. Indeed, the use of the da Vinci®robot in a number of other surgeries, such as general surgery and cardiac surgery, has been successful as well (Hemal and Menon, 2004). Recent technological advents in video imaging, endoscopic techniques, and instrumentation have converted a number of manual operations into robotic ones. Robotic telescopic assistance with systems such as AESOP® or robotic procedural laparoscopy with systems such as da Vinci® or ZEUS® are two frequent approaches to perform minimally invasive surgeries (Shew, Ostlie, and Holcomb, 2003). The former is a rather semiautomated method due to manual adjustments of optical fiber endoscopic cameras. The latter, on the other hand, involves the use of teleoperative methods, where the robotic system is of a master-slave type and the surgeon performs surgery from a distance. These systems have been widely used in cardiology, gynecology (Yildrim, 2010), urology (Ashish Sabharwal, Pradhan, and Kumar, 2006; Casale and Kojima, 2009), general surgery, laparoscopy, etc.
