Robotic Eye Surgeon

Robotic surgery has become fairly commonplace since the introduction of DaVinci over a decade ago. An estimated 3 million procedures – mainly hysterectomies, prostate removals, and, more recently, heart valve repair and/or replacement – have since been performed using the interactive, human-controlled robot. However, currently available surgical robots are too bulky to perform more delicate procedures, such as eye surgery.

A new surgical robot, dubbed R2D2 (Robotic Retinal Dissection Device), was recently tested in limited clinical trial of 12 patients requiring membrane removal from their retina. Half of the surgeries were performed manually, and half utilized the robotic system. Although all of the surgeries were successful, in patients who received the robot surgery, there appeared to be less blood vessel damage at the back of the eye. The results indicate that it may be possible to refine robotic systems to perform surgeries that are impossible to perform manually.

Human surgeons – even the best of them – can’t hold their hands completely steady. At best, the vibrations induced at the tip of a surgical instrument are on the order of a tenth of a millimeter. But many of the structures in the eye are only one-fifth that size, so manually positioning a needle without damaging other structures is virtually impossible. On the other hand, robots such as R2D2 can be controlled in increments of one-hundredth of a millimeter, making it possible to avoid injury to tiny membranes.