A robot has successfully carried out keyhole surgery on the bowels of pigs mostly autonomously for the first time, which researchers say is a significant step towards human trials. Small parts of human operations are often automated, but they tend to focus on rigid parts of the body that don’t change shape, such as bone. Robots controlled entirely by human surgeons are also becoming more common.
The robot performed the surgery on four pigs, carrying out 86 stitches in total. Two-thirds of the time, the robot placed the stitch autonomously, while the rest of the time it had to be guided into place manually before attempting the stitch again. When the tissues were examined one week after surgery, the results were comparable to those achieved by human surgeons. The operation is particularly sensitive because any leak can cause catastrophic complications.
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