Trial of robotic bone surgery conducted in north China
BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have successfully carried out a trial robotic bone surgery in the city of Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province, Tsinghua University announced Monday.
The trial was conducted on a bone fracture model at the Second Hospital of Tangshan and was transmitted via live feed to an expert team of Tsinghua's Changgeng Hospital.
The experts in Beijing remotely controlled the robot surgeon which set a broken bone in about 20 minutes, the university said.
"The robot relied on six X-rays from the intraoperative fluoroscopy to treat the bone fracture model. It was a success and in line with our expectations," said Pan Yongwei, a doctor with Tsinghua's Changgeng Hospital.
Co-developed by Tsinghua's School of Aerospace Engineering and its Changgeng Hospital, the robot is easy to operate with more accurate positioning, said Zheng Gangtie, a professor of Tsinghua. "It requires less equipment and can effectively reduce secondary iatrogenic injuries."
"In the future, we will incorporate 'machine learning' into the surgical robots, allowing them to record behaviors and therapeutic plans of orthopedic surgeons, to provide support to medical treatment," Zheng said.