Robots in training
2004-01-08 10:39
Canada - Canadian researchers are training a robot to conduct brain surgery, arguing that the machine is less likely to chop out the wrong bits than a human surgeon who relies on eye and is only accurate to about one millimetre.
The machine will be a thousand times more accurate than a human, contends Garnette Sutherland of the University of Calgary.
Sutherland adapted technology used on the International Space Station. The surgeon, who does not even need to be in the same city, guides the robot using magnetic resonance imaging to focus on a tumour or blood clot that needs to come out.
Robots have already been used to perform heart-bypass surgery in the United States but not for neurosurgery. Patient trials will begin this year.
"The system will provide us with unprecedented accuracy and dexterity and should dramatically reduce the side effects and morbidity which is currently associated with surgery," said Professor Sutherland, who is head of neurosurgery at the university.
By installing a movable MRI scanner in his operating theatre, Professor Sutherland has already taken scans during surgery to ensure that a procedure has been completed successfully. The new technique takes this one stage further.
Because the robot can work inside the MRI scanner, it will mean the surgeon can operate using real-time MRI images to guide him to the tissue or swelling that needs to be removed. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA