An investigation into whether robotic surgery can be controlled via satellite and the internet has found that quality of surgery is not compromised.
Now a team of surgeons and scientists has shown that the surgeon and robot can be linked via a 4,000 mile internet connection, or by satellite, according to a report in The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery. Potentially, a surgeon’s expertise could be made available to patients lying in surgical theatres thousands of miles away.
One problem previously identified has been the delay between the image of the patient being captured and the surgeon sending the instruction to the robot. The surgical trials showed that the delays were much greater with a satellite link than the internet (600 ms vs 55 ms respectively).
However, the surgeon quickly became used to this and there were no differences in the quality of the surgery using the two forms of communication.
The trials were carried out by a team of 11 researchers working jointly with the Department of Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, CSTAR (Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics) and the London Health Sciences Centre.
