Surgeons at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital (HUMV) have developed, with the advice of the IDIVAL Innovation Support Unit that belongs to the ITEMAS Platform, an arc-shaped device that allows surgery performed in the pelvis at the same time that are operated, with robotic assistance, pathologies in the organs of this same part of the body. Above all, it is useful for treating local tumors in advanced stages.
Simultaneously combining the two surgeries is complicated because anatomically it is difficult to identify the different surgical planes. The device facilitates this differentiation from previously taken resonance images.
In addition, as explained by Dr. Marcos Gómez, a colorectal surgeon at the Valdecilla Hospital, the new device also ensures a “greater cleaning” when removing the tumor from the pelvis (a more radical surgery that eliminates any trace of cancer in the affected zone).
For Rubén Martín Láez, Head of Neurosurgery at the Hospital de Valdecilla, the advantages of the device are two: Keep the coordinate system fixed by anchoring the patient to the surgical table to avoid displacement and thus enable reliable navigation, put that surgery with intraoperative imaging can be performed in real time (knowing at every moment where the tip of the instrument being used is located).
The device has been developed in collaboration with the engineering company Developia and with the advice of the Innovation Support Unit of IDIVAL.
This digitized surgery allows augmented reality applications to be incorporated into robotic surgery. Another advantage of transanal robotic surgery is post-surgical recovery times with significantly shorter hospital stays.
The path to the automation of surgery goes through navigation systems that allow surgical robots to orient themselves in the space and anatomy of each patient. Navigation systems such as the one presented by the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital (HUMV) will allow these future developments.
