SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) - UCSF Health is celebrating a major milestone as gastrointestinal cancer surgeons recently performed the health system's 15,000 robotic assisted surgery, making it the first University of California health center to reach this milestone.
Dr. Johannes Kratz, UCSF's director of robotic surgery, told KCBS Radio's Bret Burkhart on this week's episode of "As Prescribed" that UCSF has done more robotic surgeries than any other UC hospital and is the leading academic medical institution for robotic surgeries in the western U.S.
"It's been the result of a lot of hard work from a tremendous team that we work with at UCSF," he said.
While you may think of robotic surgery as surgery that's done by robots or automated surgery similar to a self-driving car -- that's not the case.
"We're really not there yet or anywhere close to that," said Dr. Kratz. "What robotic surgery really refers to is digital surgery or computer-assisted surgery, in which a computer is actually assisting the surgeon doing the operation, but the surgeon is still the one doing the operation."
Surgeons use the same instruments as with traditional open surgery, such as scalpels and retractors, but there's one major difference -- and it's a game changer.
"Adding a digital interface allows us to make very sophisticated versions of those instruments," said Dr. Kratz. "So if you add a computer into the mix, you won't just have, for example, a dissector that can just be long and skinny and point, open and close and rotate. But now you can have a very sophisticated instrument that actually can pivot in space. It can be wristed. It can reach hard-to-reach locations. You can have 3D cameras. And those really allow the surgeon to perform more sophisticated, minimally invasive surgeries than they ever have done before."
Use of robots during surgery improves visualization of the surgical field through 10 times magnification in 3D and enhances dexterity for manipulation and dissection of tissue with greater precision, according to UCSF. While robotic instruments manipulate tissue, surgeons use the robotic surgical system to guide the robotic arms and movements of the surgical instruments.
All that can make a world of difference for surgeons operating in areas with very limited space -- such as the pelvis, which is enclosed by bone on all sides -- and especially for patients, by increasing success rates and cutting recovery time.
"We have now many going on, almost a decade of data or longer, showing that in many, many cases, we do have equivalent or superior outcomes to using robotic-assisted minimally invasive approaches versus traditional open approaches in many of the procedures we're performing at UCSF," said Dr. Kratz.
Robotic surgeries currently being performed at UCSF encompass a wide range of specialties and procedures, including removing cancerous tissue from the lungs, uterus, ovaries, colon, rectum, esophagus, bladder, prostate, head and neck, liver and pancreas. Other robotic surgeries are used for cardiac mitral valve repair, the treatment of uterine fibroids and endometriosis, female pelvic organ prolapse repairs, hernia repairs and bariatric surgery.
The field of robotic surgery is still growing, with developments on the horizon that may even make the job more precise and give patients better outcomes.
"In terms of technology and maturity of technology, we're still sort of in the beginning to intermediate phases," said Dr. Kratz. "Instruments will get smaller, they'll get more nimble. We'll have more degrees of freedom. The visualization will get better. The robot itself will also get smaller, I think, eventually in the operating room. And it will continue to allow us to expand the possibilities of what we do minimally invasively to even further frontier. So even more complex operations, even more difficult areas of the body to reach, even more difficult areas of the body to see."
Listen to this week's "As Prescribed" to learn more. You can also listen to last week's episode to hear some successful strategies for limiting your tween's screen time (yes, it is possible!), here .
DOWNLOAD the Audacy App
SIGN UP and follow KCBS Radio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
"As Prescribed" is sponsored by UCSF.
Most Popular
Comments / 0