Empowered Patient Podcast Advancements in Robotic Surgery Transforming Cardiac Care with David Fischel Stereotaxis
David Fischel, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Stereotaxis, is advancing the ability of surgical robotics, particularly in the field of minimally invasive catheter-based procedures. Stereotaxis is developing the use of robotic technology to improve precision and accessibility in endovascular surgeries with a unique mechanism that allows surgeons to control the tip of the catheter. The adoption of surgical robotics for endovascular procedures will expand as remote access is made available and safety concerns are addressed for previously impossible-to-treat conditions.
David explains, "We build advanced robots that allow physicians to do minimally invasive catheter-based procedures with greater precision and safety. We're kind of pioneering that area of robotic surgery. We've seen other areas of medicine benefit significantly over the last decade or two from advanced robotic technologies. And there's a whole field of catheter-based endovascular cardiovascular procedures where we're still using handheld catheters that have limitations and weaknesses to them. And by improving that field of medicine, we think we can make care better for patients, and we can enable minimally invasive, effective care for many more patients."
"Robots are improving surgery in many areas in a fairly dramatic fashion. Endovascular surgery is where you use endo within vascular, within the blood vessels, you use the blood vessels as a type of superhighway and you insert these little devices called catheters into the blood vessels and then usually through the leg or the arm, and then you can go anywhere you want in the body to the brain or to the heart or to the periphery and treat the patient kind of using that catheter."
"It's a strange area of medicine, particularly for trying to implement robots, because you're working in very small, delicate anatomy, and you have to think about flexible robots because the catheter has to navigate all the tortuosity of the patient's blood vessels. You can't think about a robot in the traditional way you would imagine a robot, if you think about industrial robots. And so that's where that area has been more difficult, and that's where we're really pioneering and bringing robotics to play in that field."
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