Newly Approved Robot Performs Gallbladder Surgery
A woman had her gallbladder removed by a robot Wednesday, one day after the Da Vinci Surgical System was approved by federal regulators.
The Da Vinci, approved for use at five U.S. hospitals Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration, enables surgeons to operate by manipulating joysticks at a computer terminal. Lenses inserted in the patient’s body give the surgeon a 3-D view of the person’s insides.
Dr. William E. Kelley Jr. performed the gallbladder surgery Wednesday on 35-year-old Kimberly Briggs at Henrico Doctor’s Hospital.
“I was very pleased. I think it went very smoothly,” said Kelley, who had been trained on the Da Vinci but had used it to operate only on pigs and cadavers.
Also pleased was Briggs, who was wheeled into a news conference less than four hours after her surgery.
“I feel great,” she said, adding that the less-invasive procedure would allow her to be home in time for her son Mario’s 6th birthday party today.
With wrist-like devices at the ends of the robotic arms giving surgeons a full range of precise movement, the Da Vinci is a significant advance on laparoscopic surgery, a decade-old breakthrough that already had made many types of surgery less invasive.
Marc Katz, a cardiac surgeon, said using a computer screen to view the area magnified by 10 times and having a robot do the work with precision are “incredibly exciting.”
“It gives you the ability to get your instruments where they need to be,” said Katz, who is trained to use Da Vinci.
Over time, he said, Da Vinci could make operations involving large incisions virtually obsolete, allowing patients instead to cover their incisions with “a few Band-Aids.”
Surgery using the Da Vinci has been approved only for abdominal operations in the United States, but the $1-million robot is being more widely used in Europe, Kelley said.
Other hospitals are conducting clinical trials of robot-assisted heart surgery.
FDA approval for Da Vinci on cardiac surgery could come this year, Katz said.
Five hospitals are trained to use the Da Vinci now: Henrico Doctor’s Hospital in Richmond, Va.; Baylor Medical Center in Houston; Ohio State University in Columbus; East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.; and the San Ramon Medical Center in California.
