Computer Vision News - March 2022

24 Exclusive Interview about Surgical Robotics Professor Giulianotti, can you tell us about your work? My work is mainly based on advancing techniques in minimally invasive surgery, includingartificial intelligenceandrobotics. The idea is that we can performoperations better, minimizing complications and improving outcomes in terms of faster recovery and convalescence. It is an ongoing and never-ending process of improving science – a revolutionary step that opens up the field for unlimited possibilities. What is the current status of minimally invasive surgery? That is a very broad question. The penetration of minimally invasive surgery in different disciplines and specialties depends on the technical challenges of that specialty, but it is almost 100% in some indications. For example, the number of minimally invasive prostatectomies due to prostate cancer is probably more than 80% now. The concept is more difficult in other fields, such as major abdominal surgery or transplants, so the number of cases performed with a minimally invasive approach is much lower. What makes some fields more suited to this kind of approach than others? That is a good question. The prostate, for example, has a particular anatomical location deep into a narrow field into the pelvis. Robotics is the favored application here because the instruments do not need to move around much. For multi-quadrant Pier Giulianotti is a Full Professor and Chief of General Surgery at the University of Illinois in Chicago, the first center in the world to conduct robotic training for surgical residents. Pier speaks to us about this pioneering work and what the future holds for the field.