Robotics has changed the world of thoracic surgery for the better taking it to a whole new level.

It gives you the ability to do a more accurate, safer surgery, no matter what you are doing in the chest.

Minimally invasive robotics is performed with the da Vinci Surgical System. It involves two little hands, about eight millimeters long, controlled remotely by a surgeon at a computer board. It improves precision and maneuverability. A tiny camera provides a more magnified, three-dimensional view.

We do it well at Florida Hospital Celebration Health, which is home to the Global Robotics Institute, and we probably do more of these procedures than anyone in the world today.

Robotics is a fascinating topic when it comes to pleural mesothelioma. We recently had a mesothelioma patient come from England, where they arent doing major surgery for mesothelioma anymore. With the help of robotics here, he is back home today and doing well.

Robotics can play a few different roles with mesothelioma:

The robot in this scenario is a surgical tool rather than a platform, and its role is evolving still. This is not like taking out a prostate. You arent going to use the robot to resect a lung, and its not designed for that. It will, however, decrease the risk of complications.

Those three areas have been a problem with extrapleural pneumonectomy, an aggressive surgery for mesothelioma, and the robot can help immensely in all three of those areas.

One of the reasons major surgery has failed overall for mesothelioma is the inability to identify and pick the right candidates for surgery. The robot is really opening a new vista into understanding who should have this surgery, and who should not. Too many times, it has been done on the wrong patients.

The problem is that until you get into the chest, youre not totally sure what you will find, even after all the scans and other tests youve done. Too many times a surgeon will open the chest, and then realize this was not a good surgical candidate.

After a multidisciplinary workup and after youve determined the patient is a reasonable candidate for surgery, the robot comes into play in the operating room. Heres how:

By using the robot, you really reduce blood loss, and the complications that come with so much blood loss, which is one of the biggest problems typically. It leads to increased mortality and morbidity.

With the robot, you lose about one-tenth of the blood. Its a night-and-day difference when it comes to recovery.

At any point, if you see something you dont like, and you determine this is not a good candidate, you pull out and no real damage is done.

Without the robot and the camera, a surgeon may open the chest and realize this was not a good candidate. But its too late. Youve burned your bridges. There is no stopping then.

A surgeon will move forward with this huge operation that the patient may not survive, or the surgery does nothing but hurt the patients quality of life.

The robot can prevent these mistakes from happening. And they happen all the time without a robot.

If youre in there with the robot and you see the disease already has gone across the pleura and into the chest wall, that patient should not be having surgery. You stop.

Thats not something you should find after youve gone into the chest with traditional surgery. By then, its too late.

Its all about timing with the robot.

So now you know its resectable; the blood loss is under control; and youve taken the tumor cells out of the tough to reach spaces.

You take the robot out and open the chest by connecting those three small incisions, and its a straight-forward operation taking out the lung, pericardium and anything else you need. Its a relatively easy surgery to do.

With robotics, it is absolutely critical for a patient to go to a center doing a high volume of robotic surgeries like we do at Celebration Health. Robotics cant be done properly by a center that is just dabbling in it. You want experience, and lots of it.

Mesothelioma is such a horrible disease. The only role I see for aggressive surgery is for a patient who can go all the way. If the patient cant go all the way, then dont go at all. Thats important. Otherwise, you are doing more harm than good.

The key point in all this is knowing exactly who will benefit from surgery, and who will not. You need the robot for that.

The nonsurgical therapy that is out there, chemotherapy and radiation, just doesnt work really well. Robotics is about tweaking the surgery to help some of these patients do well.

When I worked at the University of Arizona Health Network, we did the worlds first robotic surgery for mesothelioma in January 2013. That patient is still alive and doing well today.

It makes me feel there is something to all this.

Dr. Farid Gharagozloo is the medical director of cardiothoracic surgery at Florida Hospital Celebration Health. While at the University of Arizona in 2013, he became the first surgeon in the world to successfully use robotics to perform an extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), the most aggressive treatment available for mesothelioma. Others now have followed his lead.

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Using Robotics for Mesothelioma Surgery - Asbestos.com (blog)