Singapore-Developed Robot Delivers Quick And Scarless Surgery

Patients with stomach tumors will no longer have to endure an eight-hour long surgery, thanks to a surgical robot designed and built by Singapore researchers.

AsianScientist (Jul. 6, 2011) – Patients with stomach tumors will no longer have to endure an eight-hour long surgery, thanks to a new surgical procedure that makes use of an endoscopic surgical robot designed and built by Singapore researchers.

The use of the new surgical tool, which cuts surgery time down to less than an hour, was successfully demonstrated in surgeries performed on three gastric cancer patients at the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in India from July 1-3.

The system, named MASTER (Master And Slave Transluminal Endoscopic Robot), consists of a flexible endoscope with small robotic arms that is inserted through the patients mouth. No external incision is required, which means no scars for the patient and a faster recovery time from the surgery.

During the procedure, the surgeon monitors the endoscope on a computer screen and guides it to the site of the tumor in the stomach. The surgeon then removes the tumor by controlling the robotic arms using a joystick and buttons.

The technology was developed by Assoc. Prof. Louis Phee at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Prof. Lawrence Ho at the National University Hospital (NUH). MASTER was entirely designed and built from scratch in NTU, the result of six years of research.

This novel procedure also opens up new possibilities for other kinds of surgery: the robot is able to cut a small hole in the stomach wall to get access to other organs like the liver, kidney, and pancreas to perform intricate surgery. After the surgery is done, it slides back into the stomach, mends the hole in the stomach wall and exits through the mouth.

In future, it may also be possible for a surgical system like this to be controlled remotely from another part of the world, which means the surgeon does not have to be present in the same operating theater as the patient.

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Source: Nanyang Technological University.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Yew Chung is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore.

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