A Robot Performs First Surgery on Soft Tissue Without Human Help

Medical robots, especially robots for surgery, have been a developing field in bioengineering. From the all-famous daVinci robot that did “surgery on a grape” to this article’s subject robot the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) from Johns Hopkins, each one aims for precise surgeries with less human error. As Johns Hopkins University reports, STAR had performed the first fully autonomous operation without human help. This milestone in surgery robots was also the subject of the research paper titled “Autonomous robotic laparoscopic surgery for intestinal anastomosis“.

Credit: Johns Hopkins University Hub Media Kit

A surgery without human help

The operation was a part of experiments on pig tissues where the researchers were testing STAR’s capabilities. As the report says, STAR performed a laparoscopic operation, and “excelled at intestinal anastomosis”. As the process involves high-level precision and motion, STAR had conquered one of the most challenging steps a surgeon can do, “connecting two ends of an intestine”. As this soft tissue is one of the areas that create the biggest complexions after the operation due to leaks, errors, and infections, this was a huge achievement for robotic surgery. Or in a more appropriate wording, “robot surgeons”.

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Other developments in the field

Apart from the operation itself, STAR had some improvements on its own as well. As soft tissue operations require on-the-feet quick decisions, the robot was adjusted with a “novel control system” to “adjust the plan in real-time” like a real professional. Other than that, STAR was a leader in precision, suturing tools, and imaging systems even before. So, we can say that surgical robots are really catching up to real surgeons these days. However, there is still no trial on a human and these are pig tissues. So, there would be a lot of decision-making, certifications, and finalizations before the technology will be used in real life.

Medical robots are not new, however, the technology advances at a fast pace. As a lot of new opportunities allow us to further our understanding and capabilities in medical fields like biomanufacturing in low gravity to enhance aging research I wrote about previously, it proves that the future will be providing a lot of new treatments to those who have problems today. While for some this waiting period may be painful, it is good to know that outstanding research is getting produced to help people.