Robotic Surgery Mishaps Can Lead to Injury or Death

Remember when you were a kid and robots were that could take the place of humans were a dream of the future? Well, for the past decade, robots have started to take the place of surgeons in several types of surgical medical procedures, including hysterectomy, kidney and lung surgery, and head and neck procedures.

NYU’s Langone Robotic Surgery Center alone perform about 1,800 robotic surgeries every year using one of “five state-of-the-art da Vinci® surgical systems that include advanced infrared imaging and dual consoles on which surgeons can work collaboratively.”

PROBLEMS FROM ROBOTIC SURGERY

However, BBC reported that a study into the safety of surgical robots over a 14-year period in the US has linked the machines’ use to at least 144 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries during medical malfunctions that include “broken instruments falling into patients’ bodies, electrical sparks causing tissue burns and system errors making surgery take longer than planned.”

The study also states, “Despite widespread adoption of robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery, a non-negligible number of technical difficulties and complications are still being experienced during procedures.”

While the number of mishaps is small compared to the number of robotic surgical procedures performed every year, the use of robotic surgical machines is likely to increase exponentially, and with that surgical robot lawsuits are likely to increase as well. And though there are benefits to using surgical robots, there are also risks, just like any potentially defective medical device.

If you or a loved one have been injured or harmed by a surgical robot procedure, by a da Vinci surgical system or any other, contact the award-winning product liability lawyers and medical malpractice attorneys at Pribanic & Pribanic.

REFERENCES

• http://blogs.findlaw.com/injured/2015/08/robotic-surgery-injury-lawsuit-faq.html
• http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33609495