A robot trained on video of real interventions removed a gallbladder following vocal instructions, as a surgery interior would have done.
A surgeon robot performed a complex operation in total autonomy for the first time. He did not limit himself to making few individual assigned tasks, but faced the intervention in his various phases and overcome the unexpected events that were as simulated as they were, as if he understood in which situation he was.
The robot, which had formed on video of previous operations, was able to remove a gallbladder from a pork corpse based on the notions learned e letting himself be helped by the vocal instructions of human surgeonsas a surgeon would have done. The important result was described on Science Robotics.
Cold as a robot, adaptable like a man
The study, financed with US federal funds and made possible by the guidance of a team of Johns Hopkins University, represents an important milestone in robotic surgery, in which robots precision joins the ability to cope with different situations typically human.
«We are moving from robot capable of performing specific robot surgical tasks that they truly include surgical proceduresAxel Krieger says, researcher and developer of Johns Hopkins robotic surgery systems. “This is a fundamental distinction that significantly approaches us to clinically valid autonomous surgical systems, capable of operating in the chaotic and unpredictable reality of actual assistance to the patient”.
A qualitative leap
The robot in question is called Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (Star) And in 2022 four interventions of abdominal surgery in laparoscopy on soft pork tissues had been noticed for in a impeccable way without the intervention of man. Star had achieved excellent results in theintestinal anastomosisa type of suture that connects two intestine segments and that requires extremely precise repetitive movements: even the slightest tremor or inaccurate point could give rise to lethal complications for the patient.
On that occasion, however, the surgeon robot he had operated in a strictly controlled environmentfollowing a rigid preset planning – As if he were learning to drive on a specially studied path. What the team has done, with the new system, “it is comparable to teach a robot to drive on any roadin any condition, and to respond intelligently to any situation you meet, “says Krieger. That is to say adapt to the different anatomical characteristics of the patient, make decisions at the moment and straighten the way if things do not go as expected.
An interactive pupil
Last year, the researchers had instructed three fundamental tasks in surgery independently, that is manipulate a needle, lift the body tissue and suture.
For the new intervention, the surgeon robot had to learn the subsequent 17 steps needed to remove a gallbladder, and did it by watching videos of the Johns Hopkins surgeons who operated on pig corpses.
Scientists reinforced visual learning with written text strings that described the various tasks, complex tasks such as being able to recognize certain blood vessels and grab them precisely, arrange clips in strategic points and transcend some parts with scissors. After training, however, the robot carried out the intervention with an accuracy of 100%.
Speed and unexpected
Even if the robot took more time to perform the operation compared to a human surgeon, the results were comparable to those obtained by an expert surgeon, and stars he got away with it even in situations outside the initial plans. When the scientists changed its initial position or when they sprang the organs with a colored liquid that reproduced the blood, altering visibility, it still completed the task without shocks. According to scientists, who already plan to expand the range of interventions within its reach, it is proof that it can carry out an operation independently.
