Is Robotic Surgery Right For You?

By Alice Lane

Robotic surgery sounds like something out of Star Wars or even more futuristic than that. How can a robot perform surgery on a person? How does it know what to do? Everybody is different so the robot surely can’t be programmed to think it’s looking for the same size organ in the exact same spot on a person five feet tall versus six feet tall. It sounds very confusing and a little intimidating but in reality it is pretty simple. The robot doesn’t perform the surgery, a doctor does while the doctor controls the robot while performing the surgery. The benefit of using a robot is the precision it offers the doctor versus using his or her hands. This is not to say that a surgeon can’t be as good as a robot but it is more likely that the robot and its tools offer a surgeon a precise method that quite possibly is better than what is called open surgery. It’s not just the robot that is the benefit; along with the robot there are also other tools including lights and cameras to aid in the surgery while using the robot.

Based on studies and the results over the past few years it is quite clear that robotic surgery has revolutionized prostatic surgery. Robotic surgery is one option when a man has prostate cancer. Prior to robots, the doctors would likely make a large incision and remove the prostate as best they could while possibly the nerves would be damaged and the man would lose sexual function. Having a robotic prostatectomy helps alleviate the chances of sexual dysfunction and other possible side effects of having a prostate removed due to the precision and the likely hood of avoiding the nerves during surgery. In one hospital just five years ago over eighty percent of the prostatectomies were open surgeries and less than ten percent done were done robotically. Today those figures have reversed.

By having a da Vinci prostatectomy there is much less blood loss, lower rate of complications, smaller incision, and greater precision. By having tiny incisions where the tools are inserted into the body, there is less blood loss and trauma. The light and camera add the benefit of being able to see within a fraction of a millimeter in the prostate area. It gives the surgeon much more precision when working around the delicate nerves of the prostate. As one of the options for prostate cancer treatments the robotic prostatectomy is revolutionizing surgery.

For those who are looking at options for prostate cancer treatments [www.riversidehealthcare.org/services/cancer-institute/robotic-cancer-surgery.html] having a robotic prostatectomy [www.riversidehealthcare.org/services/cancer-institute/robotic-cancer-surgery.html] more specifically a da Vinci prostatectomy [www.riversidehealthcare.org/services/cancer-institute/robotic-cancer-surgery.html] may be an option to check out. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alice_Lane