Robotic Surgery & Laparoscopy: Which Should You Choose?

The laparoscopic method, which the medical world has used in many fields for many years, offers a great advantage over older surgical methods. Robotic surgery, which has become increasingly widespread in recent years, is a technologically more advanced form of the laparoscopic method.

Robotic operations performed with a robot called da Vinci are being used in clinical practice in an ever-growing number of fields, foremost among them gynaecological cancers. Both methods have certain advantages and disadvantages. Thanks to the many innovations it brings, the robotic surgical method is steadily finding a wider field of use. When it is necessary to reach areas that are difficult to access and to perform the operation in very narrow spaces under a three-dimensional image with the help of instruments that imitate the joints, robotic surgery is increasingly preferred today.

Advantages of Laparoscopy

Laparoscopy has many advantages over traditional surgical methods. A significant part of these advantages is also considered valid for robotic surgery. The greatest advantage that laparoscopy has in itself is the sense of touch.

Because the surgeon carries out the procedure personally during the operation, they can determine precisely how much pressure to apply to the operating area. In laparoscopy, changing the position of the surgical instruments or changing the instruments used with them is also carried out more simply.

Similarly, the patient’s position can also be changed more easily than in robotic surgery. Almost all of the instruments used in laparoscopy are instruments that doctors have been using for many years. Although the instruments used in the da Vinci are similar to laparoscopy instruments, the fact that these instruments are on robotic arms and that the robot is directed in a different way may require surgeons to spend a certain amount of time becoming proficient with this device.

The Advantages Robotic Surgery Brings

With robotic surgery, a more comfortable environment is achieved for both the patient and the doctor. The surgeon manages the entire operation seated at the console. For this reason they experience less physical strain during the operation. As in all closed surgery, rapid recovery is achieved in patients with the da Vinci. For this reason the length of hospital stay after the operation is also significantly reduced.

In robotic surgery, unlike in laparoscopy, a three-dimensional rather than a two-dimensional image is obtained. In addition, the absence of any tremor such as that of the human hand in the robotic arms makes the operation safer. In this way the risk of damage to the surrounding tissues in the operating area is reduced to a minimum.

In robotic surgery, because the instruments called ‘trocars’, which allow the instruments to enter the abdomen through the abdominal wall, remain fixed in the abdominal wall, there is less strain at the trocar sites than in laparoscopy. As a result, less pain is felt in the anterior abdominal wall after the operation.