Tiny New Robot Operates Inside You
Posted on January 30, 2006
Would you like a robot to help out with those hard to reach places during surgery? New Scientist reports on a tiny 15 millimetre surgical robot that is already being tested on pigs.
The robot, developed by Dmitry Oleynikov and colleagues at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, can move around inside the stomach or abdomen to give surgeons a new perspective on the area being operated on. It is also equipped with a retractable needle, allowing it to perform biopsies.The article also talks about how Oleynikov has already used the robots to perform abdominal surgery on live pigs. The robot enters through the mouth which spares the patient an abdominal scar. However, there would be an incision "through the stomach wall" so the patient is only spared a visible scar.The device is made up of two rotating aluminium cylinders connected by a thick axle, which carries the camera. The spiral pattern on the surface of the cylinders allows them to grip the walls of the abdominal cavity and move around. "They have been designed not to slip or damage the tissue," Oleynikov says.
The robot is only 15 millimetres in diameter, allowing it to be inserted through the small incisions in the abdomen used for keyhole surgery (Surgical Endoscopy, vol 20, p 135). It is controlled from a console equipped with a joystick.