Mr Christopher Ogden, Consultant Urologist, explores the evolution of robots and how surgical robots are used in revolutionary ways in the treatment of prostate cancer including: da Vinci radical robotic prostatectomy, CyberKnife and High Intensity Focused Ultrasound. CLICK HERE for the full article.
History of the Robot
The robot is a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. The rationale of a surgical robot is to perform remote surgery or telesurgery and to enhance or increase the performance and outcomes of surgery over and above that achieved by the limitations of the human hand. The current explosion of the use of robotic surgical instruments we see today began in the beginning of the millennium with American military funded research into systems that could be used for remote surgical operations, either a continent away at the front line or remote places, including the space frontier.
Radical Robotic Prostatectomy
Mr Christopher Ogden has the longest and largest series of radical robotic prostatectomy operations performed by any surgeon in the UK, with around 2,000 robotic procedures performed under his care. He is currently part of the first randomised control trial, comparing robotic surgical prostatectomy with the da Vinci robot and the CyberKnife radiotherapy robotic system. This trial is being lead by The Royal Marsden Hospital with 35 patients recruited to date. Mr Ogden also presented one of world’s first comparison studies between whole gland HIFU and da Vinci robotic prostatectomy for the treatment of prostate cancer. He has completed multicentre trials, including the Index Study which looks at the clinical outcome of focally treated prostate cancer and is designed to assess its role in comparison to whole gland treatment.
For more information on the evolution of robots and in particular, the use of surgical robots in the treatment of prostate cancer, please CLICK HERE for Mr Christopher Ogden’s article in Hospital Healthcare Europe.