A system that allows surgeons to perform laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery from a remote console, controlling up to three robotic arms and a binocular camera, was successfully tested in 10 patients, according to a study in the August issue of Archives of Surgery.
The laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery (a Roux-en-Y procedure) is often considered the most challenging minimally invasive procedure in general surgery, requiring a learning curve of 75 to100 cases for even experienced surgeons to achieve the highest level of proficiency, according to background information in the article. Although robotic surgical techniques have been developed to assist laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery, the complex geometry of the surgery has required repositioning of the robot, complicating its use.
Catherine J. Mohr, M.S.M.E., of the Stanford School of Medicine, Calif., and colleagues report the first 10 patients to undergo a totally robotic laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (during March and April 2004) using a technique developed to minimize robot repositioning. The results were compared with a sample of 10 patients who had undergone standard laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery during July to September 2002. There were no significant differences in the general health, age or body mass index (BMI, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) of the two sets of patients. All patients were women. The researchers compared surgical times as well as the ratio of the procedure time to the patient's BMI.