Thoracic Surgery Archives

Olive Medical out of Salt Lake City, Utah unveiled its HD rigid endoscope for use with the company’s fully HD camera. The endoscope is autoclavable and the company is now offering a rigid endoscope repair program that promises to repair the devices within 48 hours.

Some stated features of the endoscope from the announcement:

EZ-IDâ„¢ color-coding system for quick angle identification, durable rod lens system, scratch resistant sapphire windows, high density fiber bundles for maximum light exposure and compatibility with the most commonly used equipment and current visualization systems.

Press release: Olive Medical introduces HD optimized endoscopes for sale and cost effective scope repair business…

Link: Olive Medical homepage…

Flashbacks: Olive Medical Releases Budget Conscious HD Surgical Camera; Olive Medical’s New Disposable High Definition Endoscopy Camera

Mimic Technologies, a company that builds the dV-Trainer, a da Vinci surgical robot simulator, recently released a software product to help assess how novice surgeons are using the simulator. The company has been collecting data from experienced surgeons performing various tasks on the simulator, and the MScore application is able to compare a novice user of the dv-Trainer against this data set to provide an overall performance score.

The hope is that with better in-silico training coupled with performance feedback, fewer animals will be sacrificed for this task, and patients will have better skilled surgeons working on them.

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Aesculap, a subsidiary of B. Braun, has announced it is making available its Caiman line of surgical tools.

The devices feature unique jaw articulation for control and the company’s own algorithm that controls the energy applied to ensure a proper tissue seal.

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The advantages of endoscopic surgery are many. However, there are also drawbacks, especially for surgeons. Consider the following. Endoscopic surgery lacks fine precision due to the rigid nature of the tools. Moreover, because the surgeon is basically operating a lever (the beam being the surgical instrument and the trocar being the fulcrum), the surgeon’s movements are actually operating in opposite direction, which necessitates extensive training.

Robotic surgery has been developed concurrently with the advancement of electronic and computer technologies with a specific goal of solving some intrinsic problems of endoscopic approach. Surgical robots, such as the da Vinci, allow a surgeon to not only work remotely, but to also be able to effortlessly perform delicate procedures with his or her hands because of the robot’s ability to translate large movements by the surgeon into small movements in the corresponding instruments. However, the surgeon does not have any haptic feedback when instruments come in contact with tissue. Moreover, available surgical robots are very expensive and require a lot of space, a luxury that few hospitals have.

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