Robotic surgery for cancer treatment

Surgical operation is still one of the important options for treatment of many types of cancer. In the present-day treatment of cancer, patients' quality of life is focused on and surgeons need to provide minimally invasive surgery without decreasing the curability of disease. Endoscopic surgery contributed to the prevalence of minimally-invasive surgery. However it has also raised a problem regarding differences in surgical techniques among individual surgeons. Robot-assisted surgery provides some resolutions with 3D vision and increases the freedom of forceps manipulation. Furthermore, 3D visual magnification, scaling function, and the filtering function of surgical robots may make it possible for surgeons to perform microsurgery more delicate than open surgery. Here, we report the present status and the future of the representative surgical robot, and the da Vinci surgical system.