Robotic Surgery for Emergency Rooms? Some Are Saying "Yes"
It's an article posted by Intuitive Surgical- maker of the 'da Vinci Surgical System,' but the topic has been receiving more interest lately. Entitled "Can robotic surgery be used for emergency surgery?" the article features two emergency room surgeons who have worked to make robotic emergency procedures via the da Vinci an option 24/7 in their hospitals.
From the Intuitive article: “This has worked really well for my practice,” says Dr. Andrea Pakula, a general and acute care surgeon at Adventist Health Hospital in Simi Valley, just outside Los Angeles. “It’s allowed me to expand minimally invasive surgery to the patients that I see through the emergency room.”
For her, she has seen benefits to many emergency cases that arise from diverticulitis. Dr. Laila Rashidi, already a robotic colorectal surgeon, convinced her hospital to use the robot for emergency cases, and published a study with the significant results recently: " Robotic colorectal surgery in the emergent diverticulitis setting: is it safe? A review of large national database" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37225935/ The published numbers speak for themselves- robotic emergency cases have significantly lower ICU admission rates, among other statistics.
According to Intuitive's article, it revealed: "that for emergency diverticulitis cases, her da Vinci cases had significantly decreased rates... of post-surgical intestinal (anastomotic) leaks compared to open surgery."
