The surgeon who blogs and tweets as The Skeptical Scalpel (@Skepticscalpel) started my day with a Tweet that read: Houston Chronicle’s hard-hitting exposé on robotic surgery. http://is.gd/lT5ed4 You have to know his work and his style to know that he was being sarcastic about “hard hitting exposé.” The headline of the piece is: Advances in surgeries with robots reduce risks and trim recovery times The lead paragraph is: What if…
MedPage Today reports: Among hospitals that marketed robotic gynecologic surgery on their websites, as many as 90% touted benefits that have minimal evidence-based support. Claims related to reduced pain, shorter recovery, and decreased blood loss were cited by 76% or more of hospitals that promoted robotic capabilities. Few hospital websites cited evidence-based data to back up the claims, and the limitations of robotic surgery rarely appeared,…
analysis. He wrote me: The Fox segment seemed designed to confuse audiences. The host begins by describing a new robotic radiosurgery (Cyberknife) that the expert commentator then explains is neither a robotic procedure nor a surgery while at the same time showing clips from one of his robotic surgical procedures. The banner graphic across the bottom of the screen reads “radiosurgery vs. robotic prostatectomy,” but Dr. Samadi launches into an i…
If my Google search can be trusted at this moment, very few mainstream news organizations have reported on new robotic prostate surgery data presented at a cancer meeting in Florida this week. MedPageToday had the best story I’ve seen, “Long Learning Curve for Robotic Prostate Removal.” Excerpts: “Three experienced surgeons needed more than 1,600 cases to achieve acceptable outcomes with robotic-assisted laparoscopic p…
A journalist wrote me: “Ack! Another rah rah rah robotic surgery article, this time in the Times.” The blogging surgeon known as the Skeptical Scalpel tweeted: Skeptical Scalpel @Skepticscalpel ICYMI. Robotic surgery puff piece in the NY Times. http://is.gd/EjhZbe What draws their ire? A New York Times piece, “When Robotic Surgery Leaves Just a Scratch.” It discusses some new robotic surgery approaches, including …
We’ve written before about some of the headlines praising robotic surgery: • Robot doctor – surgery of tomorrow • Da Vinci puts magical touch on the prostate • Cancer survivors meet lifesaving surgical robot • Robotic surgeon’s hands never tremble • Da Vinci is code for faster recovery • Surgical Maestro • DA VINCI ROBOT IS SURGERY WORK OF ART Now even the news that a company is testing a couple of robotic-surgery-training-…
The Watchdog’s elves are everywhere this Christmas season, and one of them reports that a New Jersey medical center is promoting its robotic surgery system in a very upscale mall. This particular elf took a photo to send to Watchdog Santa. It turns out that a local news website added to the medical center’s free publicity. The story states that local doctors demonstrating the robotic system claimed: “robotics has really chang…
Trine Tsouderos of the Chicago Tribune published a noteworthy story, “Remote-control surgery grows, despite inconclusive evidence.“ Excerpts: Intuitive Surgical is a medical sensation, transforming surgery in some fields, especially gynecology and urology, in about a decade. More than 250,000 hysterectomies and prostate removal surgeries were done with the da Vinci last year, according to the company. Surgeons are expanding use of t…
mic hypothesis, let me roll out what promoters often do – an anecdote. After yesterday’s post, a physician (who wished to remain anonymous) wrote me: “Gary, I saw your post today about the Da Vinci robotic surgery system. I need to get this off my chest. I know a small town physician. Several months ago, the DaVinci was foisted on this physician’s relatively small local hospital because the hospital was rapidly losing …
To a man with a new hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a hospital and/or surgical team with a new robotic surgery system, everything looks like a prime candidate for the robot. And then there’s this about “off-label” use of the robot for thyroid surgery: Reuters Health reports: “Surgery to remove part of the thyroid gland is twice as expensive when it’s done with the help of a robot rather than by a surgeon al…
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