Robotics: Will they give a new kick to single-site surgery?

摘要

The faith healers from the Philippines who perform so-called psychic surgery attract a lot of attention. They are said to use only their bare hands to remove growths and other organic-looking materials from a person's body, and they create the illusion that their hands enter the patient's body without leaving any scar. Laparoendoscopic single-site surgery (LESS) and even more natural orifice translum-inal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) seem to come very close to this scenario. However, these techniques are not an illusion or trickery at all but very complex surgery indeed. The spectrum of LESS is not restricted to the removal of simple renal cysts but includes reconstruction such as pyelo-plasty, all kinds of oncologic surgery up to partial nephrectomy, and is even successful with donor nephrec-tomy [1-3].