'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
It’s one small suture for robots, one big step for the field of robotics — for the first time, a robot has performed a surgery on the soft tissue of a pig from start to finish without a human helping to guide it.
The achievement, described in the journal Science Robotics on Wednesday, takes us closer to robots performing intricate surgery on humans with a level of precision that researchers say could exceed human doctors.
And the surgery the robot performed was no small feat.
“Our findings show that we can automate one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in surgery: the reconnection of two ends of an intestine,” Axel Krieger, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering and senior author of the research, said in a press release.
“The STAR performed the procedure in four animals and it produced significantly better results than humans performing the same procedure.”
The robot is called the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot — STAR for short — and this is its latest iteration. A 2016 model of the robot performed a surgery to repair a pig’s intestines, but the older model had to utilize a large incision to reach the intestine, and needed more hands on guidance from humans.
Now, STAR is capable of laparoscopic surgery on soft tissue, a type of procedure which allows surgeons to access the inside of the abdomen without making a large incision in the patient’s skin, also known as keyhole surgery.
In order to perform surgery to repair an intestine, it requires extreme focus for surgeons, as they will need to make small, repetitive motions for an extended period while suturing the intestine back together. It’s the perfect challenge for a robot, as a robot can’t fall victim to a sudden hand cramp or tremor — both of which could cause the slightest leak in the intestines, potentially leading to life-threatening surgical complications for a patient.
But although autonomous robot surgery does exist for some issues, including problems involving rigid bony tissues and even brain surgery, repairing soft tissue can be hard for robots, because the soft tissue is unpredictable. Until now, autonomous robot surgery on soft tissue hasn’t been achieved.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, working with collaborators at the Children’s National Hospital, have been working on the robot for years.
Krieger explained that the new model which achieved the autonomous surgery has a control system that allows STAR to change its surgical plan as it works with the tissue, allowing it to adapt to any challenges that arise as they do.
“What makes the STAR special is that it is the first robotic system to plan, adapt, and execute a surgical plan in soft tissue with minimal human intervention,” he said.
It also has an endoscope capable of 3D imaging in order to guide the robot’s actions.
A photo of the robot performing the surgery itself shows multiple white arms that end in surgical tools hovering above the pig. The pigs were monitored for a week after the surgery was performed in order to compare the healed intestine with surgical models.
According to the study, more than a million anastomoses (surgery to rejoin two tubular structures) are performed in the U.S. every year, which means that improving it through robots could be a life-saver.
“Robotic anastomosis is one way to ensure that surgical tasks that require high precision and repeatability can be performed with more accuracy and precision in every patient independent of surgeon skill,” Krieger said. “We hypothesize that this will result in a democratized surgical approach to patient care with more predictable and consistent patient outcomes.”
The work isn’t over — the research explained that the success of these surgeries have already given researchers ideas for what tweaks they can make to the robot’s design, including better imaging to reduce the suturing time and a proximity sensor at the tip of the surgical tools in order to track tissue contact and tension better.
All steps towards the ultimate goal of STAR performing this surgery on humans someday.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.