Latest news with #autonomoussurgery
The Independent
6 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Robot performs surgery with ‘100% accuracy'
A robot has performed realistic surgery on its own with 100% accuracy. The robot was watched as it performed a lengthy phase of a gallbladder removal on a life-like patient. It's been viewed as a 'major leap' towards using more robots in operating theatres. The robot operated with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers in the US, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real-life medical emergencies. It was able to respond to and learn from voice commands from the team, just like a novice surgeon working with a mentor. Overall, there were 17 tasks in the surgery. The robot had to identify certain ducts and arteries and grab them precisely, strategically place clips, and sever parts with scissors. It was also able to adapt even when dye was introduced which changed the appearance of the organs and tissue. Associate professor in mechanical engineering, Axel Krieger, said: 'This advancement moves us from robots that can execute specific surgical tasks to robots that truly understand surgical procedures. 'This is a critical distinction that brings us significantly closer to clinically viable autonomous surgical systems that can work in the messy, unpredictable reality of actual patient care.' The work received federal government funding and was published in the journal Science Robotics. Back in 2022, a robot performed the first autonomous robotic surgery on a pig. However, it required specially marked tissue, operated in a highly controlled environment, and followed a rigid, pre-determined surgical plan. Mr Krieger said that phase was like teaching a robot to drive along a carefully mapped route. But the new system, he said, was 'like teaching a robot to navigate any road, in any condition, responding intelligently to whatever it encounters.' He added: 'To me it really shows that it's possible to perform complex surgical procedures autonomously.' The new system, which uses the same machine learning architecture that powers ChatGPT, also adapts to a patient's anatomical features in real-time and works to correct itself. It can respond to spoken commands such as 'grab the gallbladder head' or 'move the left arm a bit to the left', and then learns from that feedback. Ji Woong Kim, a former postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins who is now at Stanford University, said: 'This work represents a major leap from prior efforts because it tackles some of the fundamental barriers to deploying autonomous surgical robots in the real world. 'Our work shows that AI models can be made reliable enough for surgical autonomy – something that once felt far-off but is now demonstrably viable.' Although the robot took longer to perform the work than a human surgeon, the results were comparable to an expert surgeon, researchers said. Next, the team will train and test the system on more types of surgeries. Reacting to the findings, Nuha Yassin, consultant colorectal surgeon and council member and lead for the future of surgery, robotics, and digital surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) said: 'It's always exciting to see new developments in surgical innovation, especially in areas like robotics and digital surgery. 'That said, the real test will be how safely and effectively the findings of this study can be translated into human trials. 'We need to make sure that progress doesn't come at the expense of patient safety. An additional focus is training our current and future generations as a whole, but also in technology and digital literacy. 'As interest in robotic and digital surgery continues to grow, we're committed to supporting that progress whilst focusing on safe implementation and training, through our guidance on robotic-assisted surgery and surgical innovation – while keeping equity of access and safety for our patients at the heart and centre.'
CTV News
07-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Autonomous robot performs first realistic surgery without human help
For the first time ever, a robot has performed a realistic surgery without human help. According to a new study, the AI-powered robot precisely executed a complex part of a gallbladder removal after being trained by videos of human surgeons. Led by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the study found that the robot's performance was 'comparable to an expert surgeon' during trials on pig gallbladders. 'This advancement moves us from robots that can execute specific surgical tasks to robots that truly understand surgical procedures,' corresponding author and medical roboticist Axel Krieger said in a news release. 'This is a critical distinction that brings us significantly closer to clinically viable autonomous surgical systems that can work in the messy, unpredictable reality of actual patient care.' While Krieger and colleagues have trained robots to perform specific surgical tasks in the past, this was the first time that one was able to operate autonomously without a predetermined plan. Rather than teaching a robot to follow a mapped route, Krieger likened their latest breakthrough to 'teaching a robot to navigate any road, in any condition, responding intelligently to whatever it encounters.' The robot was also able to learn from and respond to voice commands from the team, much like a novice surgeon working under supervision of a mentor. After being trained, the robot operated autonomously on eight pig gallbladders, performing perfectly without any human intervention. 'To me it really shows that it's possible to perform complex surgical procedures autonomously,' Krieger, an associate professor in mechanical engineering, said. 'This is a proof of concept that it's possible and this imitation learning framework can automate such complex procedure with such a high degree of robustness.' 'Comparable to an expert surgeon' Although the robot took longer than a human surgeon, researchers say it had a 100 per cent success rate in all eight surgeries and was able to adapt to different pig gallbladders and unexpected scenarios, like when its starting position was moved. On average it took the robot five minutes and 17 seconds to complete the required tasks, compared to about four minutes for a human surgeon. 'In these experiments, we observe the consistent ability of our framework to generalize to unseen anatomies and self-correct its own behaviour,' an advance copy of the study explained. 'Preliminary comparison shows that, while our framework requires more operation time, the performance is comparable to an expert surgeon.' Using the typically human-operated robotic da Vinci Surgical System, the robot was built and trained with the same machine learning architecture that drives ChatGPT. 'Our work shows that AI models can be made reliable enough for surgical autonomy – something that once felt far-off but is now demonstrably viable,' lead author and former Johns Hopkins postdoctoral researcher Ji Woong 'Brian' Kim said in the news release. Warning: some readers may find the following image disturbing. Surgical Robot The surgical robot performing a gallbladder surgery. (Juo-Tung Chen/Johns Hopkins University) The study was published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics. The gallbladder removal procedure required a string of 17 tasks that included identifying certain ducts and arteries in order to place clips and sever parts with scissors. The researchers would now like to train and test the surgical robot for other types of procedures and to eventually perform a completely autonomous surgery. 'Autonomous surgery holds immense potential for improving surgical outcomes, reducing costs, and expanding access to high-quality healthcare,' the study said. '[Our] approach also supports real-time language interventions from expert surgeons, making it practical for potential integration into hospitals as a tool for surgeons to reduce fatigue on simple procedures or for areas with no access to trained surgeons.'
