Consider These Advantages of Robotic Surgery

When you hear the term, “robotic surgery,” you may envision an operating room with nothing but robots moving about, but this isn’t the case (yet). Today’s robotic technology offers the perfect blend of human experience and robotic precision, allowing us to perform both routine and complex procedures with an added level of accuracy that is harder to achieve with our own hands.

The team of urological experts here at Arizona Urology believes that modern medicine stands to benefit greatly from technological innovation, so long as humans are still in the mix. A great example of this is our da Vinci® robotic surgery system.

To give you an idea about why this approach to surgery excels, we review a few of the many benefits below.

Losing the hands, but not the experience

With our da Vinci system, our surgeons sit at a console and insert their hands into special gloves that translate human movements into more accurate robotic movements. Carrying out the movements are robotic arms that are equipped with specialized instruments — and these mechanical “hands” are steadier and more precise than human hands alone.

So, if you’re thinking that the surgeon simply pushes a button and leaves, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Our surgeons are there, every step of the way, guiding the movements and making decisions that can only come with years of experience.

Better visualization

Another advantage of our robotic da Vinci system is that we’re able to visualize the surgical area far more clearly. We first insert a tiny, lighted camera into the target area, which transmits high definition 3D images onto a screen at the console.

These live images offer 10x magnification, which is far more than human eyes alone can achieve. 

A minimally invasive path

Thanks to the camera and tiny instruments, we don’t have to resort to open surgery, which can be invasive and lead to collateral damage to surrounding tissues.

With da Vinci robotic surgery, we only make several small incisions, through which we thread the instruments.

Not only does this minimize the impact, this approach also leads to less blood loss, a decreased risk of infection, reduced scarring, and faster recovery times.

What we can accomplish with robotic surgery

In the field of urology, there are many applications for da Vinci robotic surgery, including:

• Prostatectomy — removing all or part of your prostate
• Sacrocolpopexy — pelvic prolapse surgery
• Cystectomy — removing all or part of your bladder
• Nephrectomy — removing all or part of your kidney
• Pyeloplasty — urinary tract reconstruction 
• Vaginal hysterectomy

As you can see, there’s much we can accomplish with our da Vinci robotic system and there may be more in the future as this technology advances.

If you have more questions about robotic surgery, please feel free to contact one of our locations in Goodyear, Glendale, Gilbert, or Phoenix, Arizona.