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A surgical robot that carries out its own MRI scans has been created by neurosurgeons in Canada. The system will liberate surgeons from the limitations of the human hand and could extend the working life of experienced surgeons way beyond the first signs of shakiness. Garnette Sutherland and his team have worked for six years to design a machine "that represents a milestone in medical technology." The MRI-enabled robot was built in cooperation with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA). "Many of our microsurgical techniques evolved in the 1960s, and have pushed surgeons to the limits of their precision, accuracy, dexterity and stamina," explains Sutherland of the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine and the Calgary Health Region. "NeuroArm dramatically enhances the spatial resolution at which surgeons operate, and shifts surgery from the organ towards the cell level." NeuroArm is controlled by the surgeon via a pair of hand controllers at a computer workstation and operates in conjunction with real-time MRI. A special feature of NeuroArm is its sense of touch, referred to as haptics, which enables even more precise surgical operations. This, the developers say, provides surgeons with unprecedented detail and control. If keyhole surgery were the enabling revolution in surgery of the twentieth century then robotic surgery working at the microscopic scale has to be the advanced surgical technique for this century. NeuroArm is currently being put through its surgical paces and the first patient will go under the robotic knife in summer 2007. "The best surgeons in the world can work within an eighth of an inch using NeuroArm," says Doc Seaman, a member of the Seaman Family, which provided $2 million of the original financial support in 2001 to initiate the development of the system at the Seaman Family MR Research Centre, Calgary. Seaman adds that, "This will put us on the world stage and will help attract more top people in medicine and surgery, which will benefit the university and the community as a whole." "We're not just building a robot, we're building a medical robotics program," Sutherland says, "We want the neuroArm technology to be translated into the global community, i.e. hospitals around the world." Sutherland's team is now developing specialized surgical training programs for using NeuroArm. Many other surgical disciplines have and continue to participate in applying neuroArm to various types of surgical procedures. Related links:
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Sutherland combining robotics, MRI, and surgery |
