Early-stage gastrointestinal cancer is often treated by endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) using a flexible endoscope. Compared with conventional percutaneous surgery, ESD is much less invasive and provides a high quality of life for the patient because it does not require a skin incision, and the organ is preserved. However, the operator must be highly skilled because ESD requires using a flexible endoscope with energy devices, which have limited degrees of freedom. To facilitate easier manipulation of these flexible devices, we developed a surgical robot comprising a flexible endoscope and two articulating instruments. The robotic system is based on a conventional flexible endoscope, and an extrapolated motor unit moves the endoscope in all its degrees of freedom. The instruments are thin enough to allow insertion of two instruments into the endoscope channel, and each instrument has a bending section that allows for up&#x2013;down, right&#x2013;left, and forward&#x2013;backward motion. In this study, we performed an ex vivo feasibility evaluation using the proposed robotic system for ESD in a porcine stomach. The procedure was successfully performed by five novice operators without complications. Our findings demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed robotic system and, furthermore, suggest that even operators with limited experience can use this system to perform ESD.

Ryu Nakadate

Tsutomu Iwasa

Shinya Onogi

Jumpei Arata

Susumu Oguri

Yasuharu Okamoto

Tomohiko Akahoshi

Masatoshi Eto

Makoto Hashizume

Surgical Robot for Intraluminal Access: An Ex Vivo Feasibility Study

Robotic surgery is expanding in the minimally invasive treatment of gastrointestinal cancer. In the field of gastrointestinal cancer, robotic surgery is performed using a robot-assisted surgery system. In this system, the robot does not operate automatically but is controlled by the surgeon. The surgery assistant robot currently used in clinical practice worldwide is the leader-follower type, including the da Vinci&#x00AE; Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical). This review describes the current state of robotic surgery in the treatment of gastrointestinal cancer and discusses the future development of robotic systems in gastrointestinal surgery.

Kenoki Ohuchida

Robotic Surgery in Gastrointestinal Surgery

Toshio Fukuda

Cyborg and Bionic Systems: Signposting the Future

About this journal

The Open Access journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, published in association with BIT, promotes the knowledge interchange and hybrid system codesign between living beings and robotic systems.

Journal profile

Meet the editorial board

Cyborg and Bionic Systems’&nbsp;editorial board is led by Toshio Fukuda (Beijing Institute of Technology)&nbsp;and is comprised of experts who have made significant and well recognized contributions to the field.

Editorial board

More special issue details

<a href="/cyborg-and-bionic-systems-special-issues/micro-nano-manipulation/">Micro/Nano-Manipulation and Bio-Assembler</a>

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<a href="/cyborg-and-bionic-systems-special-issues/cyborg-limb-and-human-interface/">Cyborg Limb and Human Interface</a>

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<a href="/cyborg-and-bionic-systems-special-issues/rehab-human-machine-interact/">Rehabilitation and Human-Machine Interaction</a>

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<a href="/cyborg-and-bionic-systems-special-issues/devices-wearables-injury-prevent-rehab/">Devices and Wearables for Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation</a>

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<a href="/cyborg-and-bionic-systems-special-issues/neurorehabilitation/">Emerging Neural Technologies for NeuroRehabilitation</a>