J.Jpn. Surg. Soc.
ISSN 1880-1129

[Abstract] [Full Text PDF] （in Japanese / 4711KB） [Members Only And Two Factor Auth.]

J.Jpn. Surg. Soc.. 101(3): 293-298, 2000

Feature topic

SURGERY USING MASTER-SLAVE MANIPULATORS AND TELEMENTORING

1) Department of Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
2) Department of Surgery, Kawasaki Municipal Hospital, Kawasaki, Japan

Toshiharu Furukawa1), Go Wakabayashi1), Soji Ozawa1), Masahiko Watanabe1), Masahiro Ohgami1), Yuko Kitagawa1), Seiichiro Ishii2), Yoshito Arisawa2), Tai Ohmori2), Katsuhiko Nohga2), Masaki Kitajima1)

Master-slave manipulators enhance surgeons' dexterity and improve the precision of surgical techniques by filtering out surgeons' tremors and scaling the movements of surgical instruments. Among clinically available master-slave manipuiators, the epoch-making system called “da Vinci" developed by Intuitive Surgical Inc. (Mountain View, CA, USA), equipped with 2 articulated joints at the tip of the surgical instruments allowing 7 degrees of freedom, mimics the movements of surgeons' wrists and fingers in the abdominal or thoracic cavity. Today advanced telecommunications technology provides us excellent motion images using only 3-ISDN telephone lines. Experienced surgeons at primary surgical sites have been able to perform complex procedures successfully by consulting specialists at remote sites. Because telecommunications costs have become lower each year, telementoring will be come a routine surgicai practice in the near future. The usefulness of surgical telementoring has been greatly enhanced by the development of a technique to illustrate on video images from two directions. Moreover, remote advisory surgeons will be able to provide the optimal operative field to operating surgeons using robotic camera holders with voice-recognition systems. In the near future, when master-slave manipulators will also be coupled with telementoring systems, remote experts could actually perform complex surgical procedures.

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