Robotic surgery at Bangkok Hospital
Augmented reality surgery and virtual reality surgery are terms that will become more commonplace in the medical industry as advances in computer assisted operations move forward. And the Thai healthcare industry isn’t being left behind. Recently the first robotic sugery in Thailand was performed, a prostrate cancer operation at Bangkok Hospital using the Da Vinci laporoscopic robot. Laporoscopic surgery is the use of a small camera and tools inserted into the body through a small incision. Advanced systems allow the use of many specialized tools to perform complex operations. Key to making this type of surgery viable is advanced imaging, so-called augmented reality surgery, where the view of the patient is augmented by MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans so that doctors can see in real time what is diseased and what is healthy, and then guide the robot during the operation.
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April 21st, 2007 at 11:30 am
[…] For those who are following the advancement in robotic surgery the recent earnings report by Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), the makers of the Da Vinci laporoscopic robot, show strong growth in the use of the technoloy. They reported that profits jumped 65 percent in the first quarter of 2007. Their stock is taking off as a result, jumping over 9 percent on the news. The increase in earnings comes from their focus on increasing the number of procedures per system. Sales of new robotic systems are a large part of their earnings but their unique business model of generating recurring revenues based on the number of operations performed looks to be a long term growth driver. It is the old “razor/razorblade” model because the robotic systems use instruments that are disposed after each operation. The annualized number of procedures per system increased to 133 in the first quarter versus 119 in 4Q06. […]