NRI Doctors lead in robotics for surgery

New York, March 31:

Indian American surgeons are leading the trend of using robotics in surgeries as operating rooms in the US become increasingly hi-tech.

From prostatectomy to coronary artery bypass, surgeons depend more and more on robotics. The results, they say, are impressive in terms of patient recovery.

"In the US, robotics is now very common with over 10,000 surgeries being performed a year. It is growing quickly on the international scene too," Vipul Patel, a Birmingham, Alabama, surgeon who is a leading name in performing prostatectomy, told IANS.

Patel recently performed surgeries at Istanbul in Turkey using robotics.
Robotics is used in removing cancerous prostate glands, fixing damaged hearts, performing gastric bypasses, and carrying out tubal reversal for infertility.

The idea behind robotics is to minimise a surgeon's hand contact with the patient. After an initial incision is made, robotic arms equipped with tiny cameras and surgical tools take over.

The surgeon operates on a console showing a three-dimensional image of the patient's inside.

"It is evolving rapidly. Robotics is becoming commonplace in surgeries," said Sudhir Srivastava, a cardiac surgeon who is chairman of the board at Alliance Hospital in Odessa, Texas.

Robotic surgery requires extensive training.

"The training for robotics is quite rigorous and has its own learning curve. Once this is scaled, the procedure has multiple benefits over open surgery," Patel said.

Srivastava agreed: "There is a learning curve. Typically surgeons work on 20 to 30 cases to get trained."

One of the challenges while performing robotic surgery is getting accustomed to the 3-D view. IANS

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