Back to the Future: Robotic Microsurgery
Marco Innocenti
Abstract
Today, robotics has become the gold standard in the operating \nroom for several procedures and surgical specialties. \nHowever, microsurgery has not been touched to date other \nthan the limited application of the da Vinci Surgical System, \nnot focused on microanastomosis. Differently from da Vinci, \nwhich aims to facilitate minimally invasive procedures by \nproviding improved vision and dexterity to the conventional \nlaparoscopic approach, new microsurgical robots are now \ndesigned and being introduced to provide improved precision \nfor anastomosis. Thanks to elimination of tremor and \nhigh scaling potential, robotics in microsurgery probably \nwill acquire increasing value as the current trend in submillimetric \nanastomosis will be confirmed in the clinical \npractice.