Carnegie Mellon University professor Howie Choset, right, stands beside a robot as staff researcher Florinan Enner uses a controller to demonstrate how it climbs up a tubular armature at their lab on campus in Pittsburgh. Scientists and doctors are using the creeping metallic tools to perform surgery on hearts, prostate cancer and other diseased organs.PITTSBURGH – Imagine a tiny snake robot crawling through your body, helping a surgeon identify diseases and perform operations.
It’s not science fiction. Scientists and doctors are using the creeping metallic tools to perform surgery on hearts, prostate cancer, and other diseased organs. The snakebots carry tiny cameras, scissors and forceps, and even more advanced sensors are in the works. For now, they’re powered by tethers that humans control. But experts say the day is coming when some robots will roam the body on their own.
“It won’t be very long before we have robots that are nanobots, meaning they will actually be inside the body without tethers,” said Dr. Michael Argenziano, the Chief of Adult Cardiac Surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
Argenziano was involved with some of the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration clinical trials on robotic heart surgery more than 10 years ago. Now he says snake robots have become a commonly used tool that gives surgeons a whole new perspective.
“It’s like the ability to have little hands inside the patients, as if the surgeon had been shrunken, and was working on the heart valve,” he said.