University reaches 30,000 robotic surgeries

Brie Blevins
Fri, 06 Oct 2023 02:11:08 +0000
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The James Cancer hospital provides many robotic surgery operations for patients.
Credit: Courtesy of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute

Students know all about the food delivery robots on campus, but there are even more robot surgeons.

Ohio State has reached a milestone of 30,000 robotic surgeries performed mainly at the James Cancer Hospital and the Wexner Medical Center, according to an announcement from the Quality and Professional Affairs Committee at a board of trustees meeting Sept. 26. This type of surgery has been on the rise since the beginning of the millennium, according to Dr. David Cohn, a health sciences physician and professor.?

“Robotic surgery went from being something which was not experimental, but something very early on the curve, to now is an integrated standard across many other diseases,” Cohn said. “It is really the mainstay of cancer surgery.”?

Dr. Michael Meara, a physician and associate clinical professor for general surgery, said robotic surgery operations began at Ohio State in the 1990s, and the university was the first in the region to start them.?

“We did the first cardiac cases, we did the first general surgical cases, so we did a lot of firsts at Ohio State,” Meara said. “Where ultimately robotics settled in those early years was in urology and gynecologic oncology, so prostate cancer and cancers related to urologic syndromes.”?

Meara said in the last five to 10 years robotic surgery has expanded its use to advancing technology.

“It’s really exploded into these other — we call them service lines — but other specialties. So, general surgery, surgical oncology — we are even seeing growths in transplants,” Meara said.?

Despite misconceptions about autonomous robots, Meara said the robots operate as a tool to improve a surgeon’s performance beyond human capabilities.?

“We sit in the corner of the room on what’s called a console and manipulate those instruments through a robotic platform,” Meara said. “Some of the movements are more directed and more targeted, and one of the biggest things is it enables us to do things that maybe laparoscopically we weren’t able to do.”?

According to the Wexner Medical Center’s website, this precision allows benefits such as less pain and loss of blood, quicker recovery and shorter hospital stays.?

Cohn said this enhances the patient’s treatment, making it a priority in Ohio State’s health care work.?

“It really has improved the quality of life of our patients and continued to have high-quality outcomes in cancer care as well, so it really is a critically important component of our program across the entire medical center going forwards,” Cohn said.?

Although Ohio State has made large strides in robotic surgery, Meara said there is still more to discover.?

“I always describe robotics as a marathon, and I think we are at mile five right now. I don’t think we’re halfway, I think there’s so much left to be done, but Ohio State has consistently put our shoes on and continued to push and run down that marathon,” Meara said.