A newly designed robot could soon perform resections as good as surgeons.
- Removing a tumor is a difficult operation even for the most experienced surgeons, and it is even more difficult when the affected area is in the neck or head.
- A new robot capable of removing cancerous tumors in extremely delicate places could soon help them.
- He managed to do it six times on a pork tongue.
Scientists have developed a new robot capable of removing cancerous tumors in extremely delicate places.
When removing a tumor (or “resection”) the goal is to preserve as much healthy tissue as possible while removing cancer cells to prevent them from coming back or spreading again. This is a difficult operation even for the most experienced surgeons, and it is even more difficult when the affected area is in the neck or head.
Tumor removal: what is the new ASTR system?
The new ASTR (Autonomous System for Tumor Resection) system was designed by a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University to perform resections in complicated locations.
“Making a resection with correct margins is an extremely difficult task,” said Axel Krieger, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering, in a press release. “Our goal was to make these procedures more precise,” he added.
“The problem that many of the surgeons we work with have told us is that it is very difficult to resect a tumor accurately,” he continued. “The surgeons bring a small ruler and mark the edges of the tumor on the sides in order to remove it and 5 millimeters of healthy tissue. But how deep to go is very difficult to determine,” he explained.
Removal of a tumor: the new ASTR system more efficient than surgeons
Using tissue taken from a pig’s tongue, researchers were able to use the ASTR to remove a tumor and exactly 5 millimeters of healthy tissue using its gripping and cutting tools. The robot successfully performed six consecutive resections, without requiring any break time.
“The doctor can supervise the robot and provide it with pre-operative information, and then the robot performs step by step,” reported Axel Krieger. “What we showed is that surgeons can get very good horizontal margins with the ruler, but on deep margins our robot is better,” he concluded.
The new robot is based on technology developed for the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) which, in 2022, performed the first laparoscopic surgery completely autonomously.
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