World’s smallest surgical robot to soon assist in operation theaters

Thanks to technology, the world's smallest surgical robot has been created that will soon join doctors in actual operation theaters and assist them in surgeries.

CMR Surgical has created the world’s smallest surgical robot named Versius, designed to assist doctors in operating rooms in the future, as per a recent report by The Guardian.

The bot has three robotic arms attached to a mobile unit the size of a barstool. The robot is controlled by a surgeon via a control panel. The surgeon guides the robot’s arms while they perform the keyhole surgeries. The keyhole surgeries include surgeries performed through tiny incisions in the body, which is much less invasive than open surgeries that need larger incisions.

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The company is currently in the process of getting the robot approved by UK regulators so that it can move into the operating room. CMR Surgical hopes to pass the regulatory test by this year’s end. Once Versius is given the approval, it can benefit both the surgeons and the patients, according to Futurism.

The robot would be beneficial for doctors in keeping them to stand at painful angles for longer period of times just to get the tiny instruments in the right place. With Versius, they would only have to control the robot’s console and it will do the job for them.

As of for the patients, though keyhole surgeries are more beneficial than open surgeries, they are often avoided since they require a lot of technical expertise. With Versius, the surgeons can be trained in just a fraction of time – in hardly 30 minutes as compared to the usual 60-80 hours of practice. This can make keyhole surgeries more common among them.

Luke Hares, technology director at CMR Surgical said, “We’ll see the man/machine barrier changing. Eventually you’ll get to the point where the surgeon can say ‘put a stitch in here please’. But we’re right at the beginning of that journey.”