UroToday.com Paradigm shift; instead of having the robot all around the patient and weighing 800 kg., how about having the patient all around the robot and weighing only a few 100 mg? The pioneering work of Cadeddu at Southwestern Medical School with magnetically controlled intracorporeal robots and by Dmitry Oleynikov at the University of Nebraska with electrically tethered intracorporeal robots could change the entire face of LESS and of NOTES.

Oleynikov and colleagues have developed a fixedbase camera that can be deployed through a small incision into the abdomen as well as a mobile, insertable robot capable of “rolling” onto an organ and taking a biopsy. It seems clear that technology will conquer the current shortcomings of the microrobot and that in the future a squadron of these robots may be deployed via a single 15 mm umbilical, transvaginal, or transvesical incision. Once inserted, the surgeon may well retire to a console where he/she can activate each robot as need be and direct it to complete the task at hand.

The transition from the unimaginable to the common everyday world seems to be taking less and less time over the years, to the point whereby yesterdays science fiction becomes the next years surgical advance.

Canes D, Lehman AC, Farritor SM, Oleynikov D, Desai MM
J Endourol. 2009 May;23(5)78792
10.1089/end.2008.0318

Written by UroToday.com Medical Editor Ralph V. Clayman, MDUroToday the only urology website with original content written by global urology key opinion leaders actively engaged in clinical practice. To access the latest urology news releases from UroToday, go tourotoday.com