Tiny New Robots Perform Eye Surgery (technologyreview.com) 52
A tiny new Robotic Retinal Dissection Device -- nicknamed "R2D2" -- can crawl into an incision in the eye and lift a membrane no more than a hundredth of a millimeter.
"The cables that enable the robot to navigate are each 110 microns across, a little over the diameter of a human hair," reports the MIT Technology Review. The robot is controlled by a joystick (while providing a live camera feed to the ophthalmologist). In September an Oxford professor used it to perform the first operation inside the human eye, and since then five more patients have undergone robot-assisted operations at an Oxford hospital. In one procedure, a gene-therapy virus that stops retinal degeneration "was planted on the retina itself, a procedure only made possible by R2D2's unprecedented precision."
Robotic surgery is already happening. The article points out that Da Vinci, an elephant-sized surgical robot that repairs heart valves, "has operated on more than three million patients around the world." But the Oxford professor believes these tiny eye robots "will open the door to new operations for which the human hand does not have the necessary control and precision."
Robotic surgery is already happening. The article points out that Da Vinci, an elephant-sized surgical robot that repairs heart valves, "has operated on more than three million patients around the world." But the Oxford professor believes these tiny eye robots "will open the door to new operations for which the human hand does not have the necessary control and precision."
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They could try "i2d2" as in eye-two, but then Apple would sue em.
DaVinci Robot (Score:2)
The "robot" is used for a lot more than heart valve surgery. I think it is currently the gold standard for radical prostatectomy.
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It's only 'gold standard' if your standard is that you need more gold. Yes, it's becoming more common. Yes, it is quite a bit more expensive. No, it is not at all clear that it is any better. USA! USA! USA!
It doesn't work as well as old fashioned [webmd.com] prostate surgery. (Yes, it's from 2009, hasn't changed that much [cancer.gov].)
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Perhaps, but with this system you wouldn't need even a mediocre surgeon ... they could just put ANYONE behind the controls and let the robot do its thing. The operator could be a minimum wage employee, or perhaps a member of the janitorial staff.
Can't you see the advantage of this?
Q: What does C3PO do when the road is closed? (Score:1)
A: Takes an R2 Detour
R2D2? (Score:3)
Personally I'd go with "I, Robot."
Isn't it more like a waldo? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the description its more of a waldo (remote manipulator) than a robot. There's no mention of preprogrammed autonomous action.
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I am pretty unimpressed with the Da Vinci results vs standard laparoscopic surgery in most cases - it adds expense and time (setup/teardown), without really improving outcomes. These, at least, offer something you just couldn't get otherwise.
Re:Isn't it more like a waldo? (Score:4, Informative)
Autonomous actions (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about this specific type of robots.
But other robots use in heart surgery can match the motions of the beating heart and thus perform surgery on a still beating heart.
From the surgeon's perspective on the camera, it looks as if the heart was static.
(The robot automatically compensating the heartbeat).
It's not nearly fully autonomous at all (far from that): You won't be having the surgery completely done by a preprogrammed robot doing everything. Not even some part of the surgery.
But you already have some robots that can do some automatic motions to help the surgeon.
(Also, there was some research around train surgeon on a simulation done thanks to advanced 3D medical imaging, recording some interesting parts, and being able to recall the pre-recorded parts during the actual surgery. But as far as i know, its only still research, not put into production yet.)
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The manufacturer refers to them as "Intercepters", but understandably doesn't publicize that in their marketing materials.
Don't follow the old links (Score:3)
Unutterable bollocks (Score:5, Informative)
This is basically regurgitated publicity handout crap.
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Also bollocks. Retinal gene therapy (which so far has really got no further than proof-of-concept) has been going of for a while. There was (among several examples) a very brief gene therapy study in Moorfields Eye Hospital in London for Leber's Amaurosis a few years back, It basically showed you can get
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That's about as much surgery as getting a fucking Flu-shot.
Injections != surgery.
Injections are also horribly damaging to material directly in line of the target.
Unlike multi-angled radiation machines we now have that limits the damage a single ray of radiation would cause, we simply cannot do that with needles.
Robots are the only alternative that is considerably easier than trying to target the retina via chemical markers and HOPING it doesn't shit on some other part of the body. (which is all too common
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Thank you. This points out the problem with PR releases (and Slashdot 'editors' and the entire 'journalism' echo chamber. TFA will get picked up by Reuters, Google, Yahoo (well, that was last year) and Bingo. It will filter to thousands of blog sites, get picked up by the search engines again and echo back and forth. Pretty soon somebody is going to actually believe it.
Thank His (Her?) Noodliness we have Slashdot!
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Man I'm glad there are smart people like you around, who know some smart people.
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Is it going to be able to navigate to the floater that sits just to the right of the focal point in my left eye? Will it then at least move it away, or extract it? It's annoying to have this little bit of fuzz jump left and right as I'm trying to read.
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I'm glad you brought this up. I've undergone two DMEK procedures in the past year to treat Fuch's Dystrophy. No robots involved; just a highly skilled surgeon.
It has been used already. (Score:1)
It created blurred vision in Washington and was implanted in the new press secretary so that the crowds he saw at the inauguration would look much bigger. The results are called "alternative vision" [theguardian.com].
Elephant sized? (Score:2)
Where does the idea that Da Vinci is "elephant sized" come from? The link is to another Slashdot summary, and most of the links are dead.
It's not exactly sleek, but from what I've seen is hardly elephant-sized. Unless you mean a baby elephant.
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It's not exactly sleek, but from what I've seen is hardly elephant-sized. Unless you mean a baby elephant.
African or European Elephant?
Both can grab coconuts with their trunks by the husks.
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What? I don't know th- AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH
I was in the room for the first surgery with R2D2 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I was in the room for the first surgery with R2 (Score:4, Informative)
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Fine and good. Now, let's look at outcomes before we get all wound up about it. The DaVinci experience should lead one to perhaps hit the pause button. Hundreds of these nice, expensive machines were sold. At least in the US, Medicare allows an additional payment for robotic surgery (wonder why?). Yes, DaVinci is supposed to be tracking outcomes and costs but it has been very, very slow at publishing them. The earlier studies didn't show much of an improvement.
There are lots of shiny new tech invention
Re:I was in the room for the first surgery with R2 (Score:4, Interesting)
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Pff! Nice try! (Score:2)
They can't fool me, I know exactly how this procedure turns out. [youtube.com]
Dear Editors: (Score:4, Informative)
... can crawl into an incision in the eye and lift a membrane no more than a hundredth of a millimeter.
Is that the incision width, the lift distance limit, or the membrane thickness? A few extra words and comas -- actually in TFA -- would help:
Using a joystick and a camera feed, MacLaren guided the arm of the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device, or R2D2 for short, through a tiny incision in the eye, before lifting the wrinkled membrane, no more than a hundredth of a millimeter thick, from the retina, and reversing Beaver’s vision problems.
R2D2 sounds so cool, everyone will be doing it (Score:1)