"A semi-automatic multifunctional surgical robot?"
"Able to perform delicate surgical procedures in the four major fields of orthopedics, laparoscopy, neurosurgery, and vascular intervention?"
Wei Kang was completely shocked just after reading the beginning.
There is no other reason, but because the surgical robots currently on the market are specialized robots that perform surgical operations in a certain specialized department. For example, the Da Vinci robot is the king of laparoscopic surgery.
In addition, orthopedics has specialized surgical robots, neurosurgery also has specialized spinal surgery robots, and even subdivisions such as ophthalmology also have specialized ophthalmic surgical robots.
The so-called all-purpose surgical robot has not yet appeared, and they all do their own thing.
Because the treatment plans in different fields are different, it is difficult to achieve one-size-fits-all.
He originally thought that it would be enough for the robot provided by the system to be able to beat Leonardo da Vinci in laparoscopic surgery.
Unexpectedly, the system directly gave him a bomb.
No wonder it costs 50 million points, it’s worth it! So worth it!
Wei Kang's heart suddenly became hot and he couldn't wait to look down.
"How about semi-automation? How about multi-function?"
"It turns out that the nine major functions of automatic detection, automatic positioning, automatic navigation, automatic tracking, automatic imaging, automatic simulation, automatic cutting, automatic filtering, and automatic suturing can all be realized through human-computer interaction such as voice control and manual operation."
"Automatic detection can monitor the patient's vital parameters and function as a monitor. At the same time, through advanced sensing technology, it can obtain a series of operations during the operation and automatically form relevant data."
"Automatic positioning is easy to understand. An important requirement of laparoscopic robots is the automatic positioning of the endoscope, which eliminates the need for operators to specifically hold the endoscope in conventional surgeries and can obtain more stable images.
"With automatic positioning, there will naturally be automatic navigation, automatic tracking, automatic adjustment and other related functions."
"Automatic imaging is also very important. The 30-fold magnification of high-definition 3D images not only displays the surgical field of view, but also facilitates doctors to accurately position tissues and operate instruments."
"Automated simulation uses patient examination data and medical images to simulate the surgical process before surgery through virtual reality technology."
"Automatic fibrillation is indispensable in terms of safety. It can filter out tremor movements of hands during microsurgery, filter out natural tremors of human hands, improve surgical accuracy, and prevent accidental movements."
"Automated cutting uses an ultrasonic scalpel to accurately cut patient tissue and orthopedic implants, allowing for better completion of surgery."
"Automatic suturing can perfectly complete suturing soft tissues, such as skin, muscles, blood vessels and nerves."
"Oh my God, isn't this the ultimate form of surgery?"
"All auxiliary work is completely completed by a set of automatically controlled robots controlled by a medical program. The surgeon only needs to devote himself to the operation."
"In the future, surgical operations will only require one surgeon, and no other personnel will be needed."
"The first and second retractors, the nurses who deliver the equipment, are all no longer needed."
After the excitement, Wei Kang couldn't help wiping away cold sweat and shuddering a little.
"Am I really not going to get beaten like this?"
"If this continues, appendectomy can be done by surgical robots in the future."
"Do we still need so many medical staff?"
"Bad news, massive layoffs of medical staff!"
"The good news is that it's faster and easier for doctors to learn the surgery."
"In the future, surgeons can cooperate with robots to complete more complex surgeries, while more skilled doctors can directly research and develop new surgical techniques."
Thinking of this, he felt a little better.
This is okay, and it seems that I won’t become the public enemy of medical care.
"Automatically completing simple surgeries and auxiliary functions can indeed be called semi-automated."
"Fortunately, it has not yet reached full automation and directly replaces human doctors. Otherwise, I would never dare to launch it and would have to put it on the shelf."
“Look at the multifunctionality.”
Wei Kang breathed a sigh of relief and continued to look down.
"No surgical robot can escape from the three major components of the brain, hands, and eyes. The optical tracking system is the eye, which completes preoperative scanning and closely tracks the patient and surgical tools during the operation. As for the multifunctional robotic arm, it is the hand to achieve precision. for surgical positioning, navigation and operation, and then as a master console for the brain."
"The doctor sits in front of the main console far away from the sterile area of the surgery, looks at the high-definition screen showing a 3D image of the internal structure of the body, and simultaneously holds the two control handles up and down, left and right, and rotates forward and backward, and at the same time uses the built-in microphone to activate the auxiliary function by voice. By constantly switching surgical tools, only one person can complete a surgical operation independently."
"Compared with the bloody scenes of traditional open surgery, there is almost no bleeding in robotic surgery, and some suction, suturing, and cutting operations are also completed by robots, which greatly liberates doctors' productivity."
"Needless to say, the brain function of the main console, intelligent surgical tracking, adjustment, and positioning are all trivial matters."
"The biggest surprise is that it has a standard surgical mode and surgical memory function for each individual surgery."
"Each doctor can open a separate account, record every action during his or her surgery, and then choose the smoothest and most successful surgery mode to save. When the next surgery is held, the robot can automatically adjust to that mode, perfectly cooperating with the doctor to complete the same operation. Surgical operation.”
"At the same time, these standard models can also be used to assist doctors in learning new surgeries, which not only greatly improves learning efficiency, but also provides timely reminders if mistakes are made during practice to put them on the right track."
"It's so awesome. The threshold for simple first- and second-level surgeries has been lowered to the level of a medical operator. In the future, the mass production of junior doctors should not be a big problem."
"Okay, the brain is awesome, let's see if the eyes are just as awesome."
"It's really awesome!"
"Advanced optical and infrared vision imaging technology, high-performance imaging system, realistic 3D display effect, surgical images are magnified 15-30 times, fully providing a true surgical field of view."
"All medical imaging data is converted into a real color 3D model through the computer. The surgeon can control the robotic arm and cut in from a 360-degree angle, just like being immersed in the scene, to complete the most difficult surgery."
"Okay, okay, okay, doing this is the real surgical tool."
Wei Kang couldn't help but applaud.
Although he is not a surgeon, he also knows that the surgical field of view has a significant impact on surgical operations.
A poor surgical field of vision is like a blind man touching an elephant. Not only is it difficult to complete the operation smoothly, but the risks of the operation will also increase greatly.
In traditional open surgery, doctors have the habit of operating under direct vision. They can complete the operation through intuitive hand-eye coordination. The operation can be very dexterous with both hands working together.
However, after laparoscopic surgery became popular, this natural hand-eye coordination of the human body was broken.
The doctor cannot see the patient's tissue and can only watch two-dimensional video to obtain the surgical field of view.
While watching, move the laparoscopic surgical tools with one hand.
This operation is quite anti-human and goes against people’s natural intuition.
After all, from the moment they are born, everyone must use hand-eye coordination to complete various actions.
Moreover, human vision is three-dimensional, and it is not easy to break it after decades of living habits.
In addition, the display of the laparoscopic equipment is opposite to the actual movement direction, making it difficult to adapt to it at first.
It's like if you are used to scrolling with the mouse of a Windows computer, it is difficult to use the mouse of a fruit computer.
These operations that are contrary to common sense will cause trouble to doctors.
It is very difficult to learn, and it is artificially difficult to use.
Not to mention that long rod-shaped surgical instruments amplify the physiological shaking of the doctor's hands.
Therefore, although laparoscopic surgery greatly reduces surgical trauma and is beneficial to patients' postoperative recovery, for doctors, the operation is much more difficult than open surgery.
From normal mode to hard mode.
This also leads to the fact that there is a certain threshold for laparoscopic surgery, and it takes a lot of time and energy to train highly skilled doctors.
In short, it kills doctors and benefits patients.
Surgical robots are completely different.
Not only is the surgical field of view 3D imaging, it is also similar to an open surgical scene.
The doctor's operation is also completed through double handles, and the sense of direction is consistent with the real world.
The difference is naturally made up by the powerful computing power of the main console and the flexible movements of the robotic arm in 360 degrees without blind spots.
As long as the doctor sits comfortably in front of the main console, he will have a wide field of vision, move his hands flexibly within a small area, speak keywords, and summon different surgical tools and auxiliary equipment, and then he can smoothly complete an operation. , even if you sit down for several hours, you will not feel tired at all.
It's equivalent to jumping directly from hard mode to easy mode.
Such technological development not only benefits patients, but also benefits doctors. It can be described as a win-win situation.
"Tsk, tsk, it's really suitable for my wife. Even if she is weak after giving birth, it won't delay her surgery."
Wei Kang thought happily, and couldn't help but have an excited smile on his face.
However, he did not indulge in his imagination, but looked at the robot's design drawings with burning eyes.
"This is the most critical part of the robot."
"All-powerful robotic arm!"
"It turns out that specialized surgeries in different fields are performed by these different robotic arms."
On the densely packed drawings, there are five independent robotic arms on the huge base of the surgical robot.
Each robotic arm has a distal rotation center structure to ensure that surgical instruments move around a fixed skin entry point during movement.
Among the 5 robotic arms, 4 are dedicated to orthopedics, laparoscopy, neurosurgery, and vascular interventional surgery, and 1 is an auxiliary robotic arm.
Each robotic arm is very flexible and has multiple retractable functional arms, just like a Swiss Army Knife.
The biggest feature of the single-hole endoscopic surgical arm is that after a robotic arm enters the body through a single hole, it automatically expands into three continuous operating arms and a 3D high-definition camera, which can achieve visibility in a narrow surgical space. control.
Orthopedic robotic arms are relatively small and can be positioned according to the patient's anatomy and assist doctors in completing accurate bone cutting operations through force feedback.
For complex spinal surgeries, the functional arm can be installed directly on the patient's spine to achieve a rigid connection, accurately perform navigation operations, and guide the doctor to complete the placement of pedicle screws.
The neurosurgery arm also has three functional arms after unfolding. The two arms can perform various intracranial surgical operations, assist doctors in accurately delivering puncture needles, electrodes and other instruments to predetermined target points, and flexibly complete biopsy, foreign body removal, and cyst aspiration. Wait for operations.
The third functional arm is equipped with a surgical microscope to support microsurgical operations.
The vascular interventional surgery arm is also composed of two functional arms. A multi-joint functional arm is loaded with a disposable manipulator box, which can pull and control the catheter system, control catheter bending and guidewire movement, and can also load stents and balloons. and other related equipment.
A magnetic navigation system is installed on the other functional arm, which can use an external magnetic field to drive the guidewire movement, thus avoiding radiation problems caused by X-rays.
For the complex anatomical environment of the heart, the magnetic navigation system is integrated with the 3D imaging system to locate the guidewire tip and transmit its position, direction data, target point, and anatomical geometry information to the main control system, eliminating the need for X-ray imaging and Can monitor the catheter position in real time.
As for the auxiliary robotic arm, it is specially designed for microvascular suturing surgery. It has a force detection function and can complete surgical operations such as cutting, clamping, suturing and knotting.
A force sensor is installed at its end, which can detect the force information between it and the surgical environment, and feed the force information back to other surgical arms, allowing the surgeon to more intuitively feel the three-dimensional force information of the surgical environment and improve the safety of the operation.
Other surgical tools can also be delivered to complete some auxiliary functions.
Each robotic arm adopts an articulated structure and has a three-dimensional force sensing function. At the same time, without exception, it has an extremely flexible simulated wrist that can move freely in 8 directions and rotate 360 degrees, completing operations that cannot be achieved by human hands.
The surgical positioning accuracy has also reached sub-millimeter level.
It also has a motion scaling function, which not only ensures surgical accuracy, but also minimizes natural tremors or unintentional movements of the doctor's hands.
In short, advanced sensing technology, 3D medical imaging technology, new materials and intelligent algorithms allow the end of the surgical robot to be designed to be more flexible than the human hand, and can scale the operator's movement to bring the operator closer to the tip of the surgical instrument. Multiple contacts to achieve various surgical operations.
Finally, all robotic arms can be flexibly installed and removed according to surgical needs.
Only one surgical robotic arm and auxiliary function arm can be installed to complete a single operation, or two surgical robotic arms can be installed to complete multiple operations at the same time.
You can also use the tools to perform surgeries and treatments according to the needs of clinicians.
For example, it is used in bone cutting when installing joint prostheses, fine operations in microsurgery, endoscopic operations in minimally invasive surgery, mobile linear accelerators in radiotherapy, etc.
Seeing all this, Wei Kang was filled with excitement and excitement, as if the door of a golden treasure house was slowly opening in front of his eyes, waiting for him to enter.
"Awesome! With such a surgical robot, there will be no more difficult surgeries in the world."
"Whether it is traditional open surgery or laparoscopic surgery, the advantages of surgical robots are obvious in comparison."
"Like any robot, its biggest advantage is that it does not fatigue no matter how long it works, while maintaining a high degree of accuracy."
"The accuracy on the hundredth time it is used is the same as the first time it is used, without any deviation."
"The limitations of human abilities have long been a bottleneck in clinical surgery."
"In particular, the inevitable trembling of human hands and the fatigue of doctors make it difficult to guarantee the accuracy of the operation."
"Not to mention the narrow surgical field of view and limited operating space of minimally invasive surgery, which undoubtedly makes the operation more difficult."
"But these problems are almost non-existent with surgical robots."
“The development of a qualified doctor takes a long time and involves repeated failures, which can be costly.”
"Surgical robots can greatly shorten the maturation time of a qualified doctor and greatly reduce the learning difficulty, thereby providing balanced and stable medical quality."
"Robots can quickly upgrade junior doctors to a clinical level similar to that of senior doctors, solving the problem of over-concentration and uneven distribution of high-quality medical data, which has long been in short supply."
"My dream has taken solid steps towards realizing it."
(End of chapter)
