Remote surgery

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Remote surgery (also known as telesurgery) is the ability for a doctor to perform surgery on a patient even though they are not physically in the same location. It is a form of telepresence.

The possibility of being able to project the knowledge and the physical skill of a surgeon or PC [link] over long distances has many attractions. There is considerable research underway in the subject. The armed forces have an obvious interest since the combination of telepresence, teleoperation, and telerobotics can potentially save the lives of battle casualties by allowing them prompt attention in mobile operating theatres by remote surgeons or PCs.

Remote surgery (also known as telesurgery) is the ability for a doctor to perform surgery on a patient even though they are not physically in the same location. It is a form of telepresence. The possibility of being able to project the knowledge and the physical skill of a surgeon or PC over long distances has many attractions. There is considerable research underway in the subject. The armed forces have an obvious interest since the combination of telepresence, teleoperation, and telerobotics can potentially save the lives of battle casualties by allowing them prompt attention in mobile operating theatres by remote surgeons or PCs.

Remote surgery combines elements of robotics, cutting edge communication technology such as very high speed data connections and elements of management information systems. While the field of robotic surgery is fairly established, with robots being employed in a number of procedures, these robots are generally controlled by surgeons at the location of the surgery. Remote surgery is essentially advanced telecommuting for surgeons, where the physical distance between the surgeon and the patient is immaterial. It promises to allow the expertise of specialized surgeons to be available to patients worldwide, without the need for patients to travel beyond their local hospital. In fact as the techniques of expert surgeons are studied and stored in special computer systems, robots might one day be able to perform surgeries with little or no human input.

One of the earliest remote surgeries was conducted on 7 September 2001 across the Atlantic Ocean, with a surgeon in New York, USA performing a gall bladder operation on a patient 6,230 km away in Strasbourg, France. That operation, called Project Lindbergh for Charles Lindbergh’s pioneering transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, was conducted over a dedicated fiber optic link to ensure guaranteed connectivity and minimal lag. Since then, remote surgery has been conducted in numerous locations and multiple times. To date Dr. Anvari, a laparoscopic surgeon in Hamilton Canada, has conducted numerous remote surgeries on patients in North Bay, a city 400 kilometres from Hamilton. While he uses a VPN over a non-dedicated fiber optic connection without any problems Dr. Anvari’s procedures share bandwidth with regular telecommunications data.

Rapid development of technology has allowed remote surgery rooms to become highly specialized. At the Advanced Surgical Technology Centre at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto Canada, the surgical room responds to surgeon’s voice commands in order to control a variety of equipment at the surgical site, including the lighting in the operating room, precision surgical tools and the position of the operating table. With continuing advances in communication technologies, the availability of greater bandwidth and more powerful computers, the ease and cost effectiveness of deploying remote surgery units is likely to increase rapidly.

For now, remote surgery is not a widespread technology. Before it’s acceptance on a broader scale, many issues will have to be resolved. For example established protocols and global compatibility of equipment will have to be developed in order for such procedures to occur in spite of communication problems such as linguistic differences. Also, there is still the need for an anaesthetist and a backup surgeon to be present in case there is a disruption of communications, or another malfunction in the robot. Current problems notwithstanding, the potential benefits of using robots in surgery are too important to ignore. A study conducted at Guy’s Hospital in London, England compared the success of kidney surgeries in 304 dummy patients conducted traditionally as well as remotely and found that those conducted using robots were more successful in accurately targeting kidney stones.

Communication technology and the information systems needed to conduct remote surgeries are not completely robust yet, but so were banking transactions being conducted over the internet not too long ago. As specialists in information systems collaborate with communications engineers, medical engineers and surgeons, we can look forward to remote surgery allowing patients in inaccessible locations to benefit from the same level of surgical care, as the finest hospitals in the world.

Please click on the external links below for details on the above information.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0919_robotsurgery.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/episode7_essay1.html

http://www.mtsinai.on.ca/Publications/YHRFall2001/Hospital/virtualreality.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,805662,00.html

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/robotic-surgery.htm

See also

• waldo

External links

• [Article in Pulse of the Planet about remote surgery]
• [BBC News SCI/TECH -- First transatlantic surgery]
• [High Performance Network Video in support of Telesurgery / NEEMO7 Mission - Revolutionary Telemedicine Techniques]
• [Unmanned robot surgeon]

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