Westchester County Business Journal Robotic surgery catches on
Robotic surgery catches on
It’s all about the incision.
“I’ve been practicing urology for about 20 years, and the clear goal in surgery over the last decade has been to minimize the amount of discomfort patients have, get patients back to their regular lifestyle as soon as possible and to minimize the amount of time the patient spends in the hospital,” said Dr. Warren Bromberg, chief of urology and medical director of the prostate cancer program at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco. “In order to do that, you have to make smaller incisions.”
Initially, surgeons went from making incisions to laparoscopy, a process in which surgeons could make minimal incisions using very fine instruments.
“The problem with laparoscopy is the instruments are relatively primitive, so you’re asking the surgeon to do complex work using primitive instruments,” Bromberg said. “In a way it was a step back from the open surgery. It was an advantage to the patient, but it was a disadvantage for the surgeon.”
Robotics, specifically the da Vinci Surgical System made by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Intuitive Surgical Inc., takes the computer and interposes it between the surgeon and the patient using a laparoscopic-style approach, Bromberg said.
According to Intuitive Surgical, the company has expanded its installed base to more than 900 academic and community hospital sites while sustaining growth in excess of 25 percent annually since the first da Vinci was introduced in 1999. Intuitive Surgical reported third quarter 2009 revenue of $280 million, compared with $236 million for the third quarter of 2008.
“The da Vinci uses small instruments that go through small ports, which go through the skin,” Bromberg said. “The computer allows much more technical advances in the actual mechanism behind the surgery.”
To perform surgery using the da Vinci, Bromberg sits at a console a few feet away from the operating table, looks at a television monitor through a binocular device and operates handheld instruments attached via computer to the robotic system, which is attached to the instruments that go into the patient. The da Vinci hovers over the patient and makes the cuts as instructed.
Add Comment
Popular
News by Topic
- Advertising
- Architecture
- Arts
- Aviation
- Banking
- Colleges & Universities
- Construction
- Credit Unions
- Economic Development
- Education
- Golf
- Green
- Health Care
- Hospitality
- Hospitals
- Insurance
- Law
- Leisure
- Marketing
- Nonprofits
- Real Estate
- Restaurants & Food
- Retail
- Sales
- Schools
- Small Business
- Taxes
- Tourism
- Transportation
- Travel
0 Comments