Robotics in plastic surgery

Abstract

The advent of robotic surgery has revolutionized the modern treatment of a multitude of surgical diseases. With its enhanced precision, greater degrees of freedom, superior three-dimensional vision, improved resolution, and tremor elimination, robotic surgery is now playing a pivotal role in minimally invasive gynecologic, cardiothoracic, urologic, otolaryngologic, and gastrointestinal procedures. During the past decade, the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery has also started to embrace this innovative technology, especially for challenging reconstructive cases. Robotic surgery has not only enabled plastic surgeons to perform flap harvest procedures with minimal donor-site morbidity and enhanced cosmesis, but it has also allowed them to perform procedures never possible before. In this review, we illustrate the current clinical applications of robotics in plastic surgery and analyze their limitations based on the literature and our own experience in the field. We finish by presenting the technological challenges restricting the widespread use of robotics in plastic surgery, and outline some of our recent research efforts aimed at overcoming those limitations and promoting broader application of this innovative technology. © Springer Science + Business Media New York 2016.