Patient-Side Robotic Surgical Platform

TransEnterix engineers have developed a robotic single-site surgical platform that is mobile, provides high-definition 3D vision, and allows the surgeon to remain at the patient’s side.

Called SurgiBot, the company’s newest system is undergoing testing now, according to Todd M. Pope, president and CEO of TransEnterix.

“TransEnterix has ‘powered up’ laparoscopy to make it easier for surgeons to complete procedures in the most minimally invasive way possible,” Pope says. “SurgiBot utilizes robotic technologies and techniques to enhance strength, precision and ergonomic comfort for surgeons.”

SurgiBot is small and mobile, making it easy for hospitals to move it among operating suites. Its design allows the surgeon to stand at the operating table and remain in direct contact with the patient at all times – versus other robotic systems that require the surgeon to work separated from the patient.  

Here’s how SurgiBot works: The surgeon makes a small, single incision in the patient’s abdomen – often hidden inside the belly button – and inserts the device. It opens up like an umbrella, extending articulating instrument channels, which surgeon’s hands control for strength and precision. Once expanded, SurgiBot delivers high-definition, three-dimensional visualization at the operating site, restoring depth perception lost in traditional laparoscopic procedures. 

SurgiBot’s expansion gives the surgeon multiple channels to the operating site that are capable of accommodating both rigid and flexible, articulating instruments. Motorized hand controls give the surgeon powerful strength and precision in an ergonomically comfortable manner – offering tactile feel and freedom of movement. After completing the procedure, the surgeon closes the device and retracts it through the same small incision.

“SurgiBot has the opportunity to revolutionize the robotic market,” says Dr. Juan-Carlos Verdeja, the medical director for general surgery at Baptist Health South Florida and an investigator who used SurgiBot in prototype pre-clinical testing. “The platform automates what have been manual laparoscopic tasks in meaningful ways with added strength, precision, and visualization. Plus, the platform allows me to scrub in and work at the patient’s side, and maintains a tactile feel that I want as a surgeon.”

SurgiBot’s size, footprint, and cost are smaller than other robotic platforms, which hospitals around the globe should find appealing, Pope adds. Company officials will seek market clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2014.

SurgiBot was built upon the strengths and opportunities of TransEnterix’s existing manual surgical platform, the SPIDER Surgical System. Its catheter-based, flexible instruments and intra-abdominal triangulation capability are technologies not available in any other surgical system on the market.