To lower the risks associated with the use of sophisticated equipment like bypass machines, heart surgeons are now exploring alternate methods for operating on the heart.
It has been estimated that a new generation of robotic devices, equipped to balance organ movement, could soon enable surgeons to perform a wide variety of operations on a patient’s still-beating heart.
A group of engineers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are working on building lightweight tele-operated space robots for meeting the demands of the operating theatre. Surgeons are well equipped to perform minimally invasive surgery with the Mirosurge system, which is a prototype developed by experts.
The Mirosurge system uses three robot arms, two for transporting specialized surgical instruments and the third one, equipped with a high-definition stereo endoscope is used for displaying images via a three-dimensional display to the surgeon.
The robot is not commercially available but developers claim that it offers some great advantages over the tele-operated systems that are used currently. The robot enables the surgeons to measure the amount of force present at the tip of the surgical instruments. In future, the robotic technology would enable surgeons to conduct surgeries on an apparently motionless heart.
Source: http://www.dlr.de/