We are delighted to present this Research Topic as part of our
Hot Topic series in Frontiers in Robotics and AI. Our Hot Topic series has been specifically designed to highlight and accelerate trending research areas within Robotics and AI and stimulate further discussion and collaboration.
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It has been evident for some time that robotics will play an important role in the future of medicine and surgery. The importance of this integration has only been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent requirement for socially-distanced care and teleoperated medical assistance.
A crucial question when considering robot-assisted medical intervention is whether the robot system is as effective, or even more so, than a human surgeon. Key indicators for this effectiveness include, but are not limited to, operating time and complication rate.
This Research Topic aims to build on the existing developments in robot-assisted surgery by exploring the role of robot systems in reducing operating times and complication rates. We welcome papers that investigate the occurrences, causes and outcomes of surgical complications and how the robotics industry can address these issues for the future.
With respect to operating times, we aim to discuss current perspectives on the key determining factors for the length of time spent in the operating room and new methods for maximising surgical efficiency.
We hope that the research published in this Research Topic will make a valuable contribution to maximizing surgical robot efficiency and minimizing surgical complication rates. We particularly encourage papers that compare robot-assisted with conventional surgery and those that discuss the technical and safety challenges facing the medical industry as this technology evolves.
Themes relevant for this Research Topic include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Comparing conventional with robot-assisted surgery
• Robot-assisted surgery efficiency
• Robot-assisted surgery effectiveness
• Causes and outcomes of complications in robot-assisted surgery
• Control architectures for surgical robots
• Robotics for telesurgery
• Evaluations of surgical robots
• Robot integration into the operative timeline
• Patient preparation for robot-assisted surgery
• Future implications for robot-assisted surgery
This Research Topic has been realized in collaboration with Dr. Alfredo Morales Pinzon of Harvard Medical School, USA