AI Guided Camera Allows Solo Operations As A Step Towards Surgical Automation

Illustration of surgical surgery. (photo; dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - Ricardo Funke, head of surgery at Clinica Las Condes at Santiago, Chile, had a new assistant during laparoscopic surgery on Monday 8 September. The assistant is a camera guided by artificial intelligence (AI) that allows him to remove his bile bag alone.

The procedure combines magnetic surgical instruments with software that automatically directs surgical cameras, tracks the tools the surgeon uses, and adjusts the point of view without the help of a human assistant.

"The camera is following my hand movements wherever I move, and the whole process is very good," Funke was quoted as saying by VOI from Reuters. "This camera lets us do the operation alone, I did it myself with the robot."

Companies, universities, and research centers around the world have developed AI-assisted tools to perform or assist surgical procedures. According to Precedence Research, the global surgical robot market is estimated to be worth USD 15.6 billion by 2024 and is projected to reach USD 64.4 billion by 2034.

In July, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, reported the success of an AI-guided robot that performs complicated surgical procedures on the liver and pork bile bags.

The researchers called the operation in July a major step towards automated medical procedures, a hope also expressed by Alberto Rodriguez, CEO of Levita Magnetics, who provided the technology for operations at the Santiago on Monday.

"This is the first step in surgical automation with real patients in the operating room, where we show that AI can help surgeons," Rodriguez said.