KGMU to establish robotic surgery training centre
LUCKNOW Around one million patients die globally during surgery every year and the solution to lessen the casualties could be robots on the operating table, said Dr Mark Slack, of Cambridge University, who was at the KGMU on Thursday to assess development of a robotic centre here.
The centre of excellence for robotic system will be established in the department of surgical gastroenterology. The project would start in April 2019.
“Robotic surgery was introduced in 2001 but only 5% surgeons use it due to its cost and size. You cannot use the operating theatre for any other purpose if you use a da Vinci robot. But our robot is a small one and can be folded and kept in a side,” said Dr Slack, who developed the portable surgical robot.
Explaining the benefits of robotic surgery he said robot helps in performing easy keyhole surgery.
“Robots introduced in 2001 could be costly, but the cost of our robot is similar to minimal invasive surgery and almost half the cost of the conventional robots,” he said.
“The new robotic system Versius mimics the human arm and gives 3D image. It is world’s smallest surgical robot,” said Prof Abhijit Chandra, HoD surgical gastroenterology at the KGMU.
He said that the inspection for setting up robotic surgery training centre has been done and now final procedure was being undertaken. The project would start in April 2019. “In conventional method where a surgeon holds equipment for long hours there has been high incidence of injuries with strain upon muscles. Often surgeons have to leave surgery midway,” said Dr Slack.
“In a robotic surgery the surgeon sits on a chair and puts his hands inside a glove that is read by the computer system. As the hands (gloves) move, the same is done by the arms of the robot upon patient. This has lowered surgical complications and also issues in post-operative phase,” said Dr Slack.
“We can train surgeon in 20% time they take to learn techniques at present, but the popularity of robotic surgery is poor with only 5% surgeons using it across the world,” he said adding: “Use of minimal invasive surgery is up to 40%.”