Robotic surgery could be called robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery, since the robot does not really operate alone, it is the urologist who directs it. For this reason, the knowledge, experience and expertise of the urologist are essential for the intervention to achieve the best results. The robot exploits the surgeon’s technical qualities to the maximum, as it does exactly what the surgeon wants, executing his movements in real time and with maximum precision.
Robot-assisted surgery is a minimally invasive surgical system that allows urological, abdominal and pelvic interventions to be performed through small orifices and with high precision. The best known surgical robot is the “Da Vinci”, a device consisting of four articulated arms on which a video camera and the instruments necessary to perform the operation are placed. It is operated a few meters away from a console and faithfully reproduces the movements executed by the urologist and transmits them to the cutting, coagulation and optical devices that have previously been introduced into the patient’s abdomen.
Robotic surgery applied to urology
Urology is the specialty in which the “Da Vinci” robot is most useful and widespread, due to the functional implications that urological surgery can have on the urinary continence and sexual function of patients.
In general, any abdominal and pelvic urological surgery can be performed with the robot. It is used for operations on prostate diseases, especially cancer, but also benign hyperplasia and bladder tumors, allowing to remove the bladder and create a new one. In addition to kidney diseases, especially tumors, thus being able to remove the entire kidney or just the tumor, depending on the case. And tumors of the adrenal gland and the involvement of the abdominal lymph nodes that sometimes produce testicular tumors.
Advantages of robotic surgery over traditional surgery
Robotic-assisted surgery has extraordinary benefits over traditional surgery because it is less aggressive. The robotic approach is minimally invasive, requiring only 4 to 6 small one-centimeter orifices, allowing a mild postoperative period and reducing the possibility of infection and hernias. In traditional surgery, on the other hand, the incisions are large, which makes the postoperative period more difficult and increases the likelihood of complications.
The use of the robot improves the results of any urological intervention, but the intervention in which it obtains the greatest benefits with respect to classic surgery is that of prostate cancer. It offers high cancer cure rates, preserves urinary continence in almost all patients and sexual potency in the majority, results that are not possible with traditional surgery.
In general, the benefits of the “Da Vinci” system with respect to classic surgery are obtained because the robot makes it possible to increase the precision of surgical movements in an extraordinary way. The instruments are tiny compared to the surgeon’s hand and have a wide range of movement, eliminate the trembling of the surgeon’s hands, allow excellent 3D visualization and magnification of the surgical field. All this results in an increase in the meticulousness of the surgical procedure and an improvement in the results obtained.
It is essential to choose a specialist in urology with extensive experience in minimally invasive surgery so that the qualities of the robot can be fully exploited. If this is not the case, the results will not be optimal.