Supermicrosurgery

Robot surgeon capable of stitching vessels with a diameter of 0.3 millimeters has been tested on humans

Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science

The robotic MUSA system is designed for reconstructive microsurgery – operations to restore lost tissues – more precisely, for "supermicrosurgery", as the authors of an article published in the journal Nature Communications write about it (van Mulken et al., First-in-human robotic supermicrosurgery using a dedicated microsurgical robot for treating breast cancer-related lymphedema: a randomized pilot trial). Using MUSA, doctors can restore capillaries up to 0.3-0.8 millimeters in diameter.

The scientists summed up the final results of the operations performed on the volunteers after 3.5 months, when all the patients had already recovered. The doctors assessed the condition of the created vascular connections, took into account the time and quality of the intervention and compared all this with the usual data for LV. They noted that the quality of the sutures made by MUSA was no worse than that of experienced surgeons. However, the time it took for the operation averaged 115 minutes, compared to 81 minutes that would have been needed by experienced doctors.

The developers believe that this gap arose only from the unaccustomed surgeons to work with the new robotic system. The gap in the time of the operation is already small, but as experience accumulates, it should be further reduced. Moreover, no side effects from the use of MUSA were noticed, and the test operations can be called completely successful.

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