The first Russian-made robotic surgical complex has been registered in the country, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko announced on Wednesday.
“A domestically produced robotic system for surgery has been registered in the Russian Federation and can now be supplied to medical institutions, both federal and regional. This represents a new format of surgical care,” Murashko said.
The system is designed for high-precision control of endoscopic instruments during minimally invasive surgeries. It is intended for complex surgical maneuvers including tissue grasping, cutting, dissection, repositioning, ligation, electrocoagulation, and suturing, as well as the placement of probes for microwave and cryogenic ablation (the destruction or removal of tissue).
The device is an analog of the da Vinci system, which was approved in the United States in the year 2000. According to the Russian website for da Vinci, over 7,500 such robotic surgical systems are currently in use worldwide, including approximately 60 in Russia. The robotic complex allows for complex open surgeries to be transformed into low-trauma procedures involving just a few small punctures, after which patients can be discharged in two to three days.