Evaluation of a robot-assisted video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery programme

• Published in: Experimental and therapeutic medicine 2014-04, Vol.7 (4), p.873-876
• Main Authors: HE, YONG, COONAR, AMANS, GELVEZ-ZAPATA, SABIN, SASTRY, POST, PAGE, ARCHER
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cameras; Cardiac arrhythmia; FreeHand; Health aspects; Hospitals; Medical errors; Mortality; Patient outcomes; Research robots; robot-assisted video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery; Robotic surgery; Robots; Statistical analysis; Studies; Surgery; Technology application; Thoracic surgery; thoracoscopic camera holders; Thoracoscopy
• ISSN: 1792-0981; 1792-1015
• DOI: 10.3892/etm.2014.1532

At present, there is increasing interest in surgical procedures using a robot-assisted device. The aim of this study was to investigate whether robot-assisted video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) was more effective than conventional VATS. A total of 64 VATS lobectomies in Papworth Hospital (Cambridge, UK) were included in the study. In 34 cases the lobectomies were performed using conventional VATS (CV group), while in the remaining 30 cases the lobectomies were performed using robot-assisted VATS (Robotic group). In the robot-assisted VATS, FreeHand®, a thoracoscopic camera controller produced by Freehand 2010 Ltd. (Eastleigh, UK), was used. The duration of the thoracoscopic surgery in the Robotic group was 145.50±10.43 min, whereas in the CV group the duration was 162.79±9.40 min. The surgery duration in the Robotic group was 10.62% shorter than that in the CV group (P