Surgical robotics company Quantum Surgical has announced that its solution has been used to treat 100 patients at a cancer treatment institute, the Miami Cancer Institute and Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, both of which are part of Baptist Health South Florida.
The company’s solution, named Epione, is a robotic-assisted platform that has been deployed for interventional oncology.
The system was designed to help deliver minimally invasive surgeries to assist the treatment of percutaneous ablations of tumours in patients’ abdomens.
“Our mission has been to develop state-of-the-art technology that has the potential to help physicians improve the lives of patients diagnosed with cancer,” said Bertin Nahum, CEO and co-founder of Quantum Surgical.
“With yet another significant milestone, Epione has proved its relevance for interventional oncology. We aim to expand the availability of less invasive treatments for a greater number of patients.”
By enabling surgeries with heightened precision, the level of surgical invasiveness on patients is reduced.
The solution uses CT-guided navigation for the procedure, with a robotic arm helping the surgeon navigate to the best entry point and then insert a needle, with the robots’ software helping avoid contact with critical internal areas.
What’s more, due to the speed with which such surgeries can be conducted, some patients’ accelerated recovery times means some might be able to go home on the same day.
“Many patients cannot undergo extensive surgery, or their tumours are considered inoperable for various reasons, and image-guided ablation is a minimally invasive treatment option for them,” said Dr. Govindarajan Narayanan, chief of interventional oncology with Miami Cancer Institute and Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute.
“Robotic-assisted ablations allow physicians to plan and place the ablation probe with precision and obtain post-procedure confirmation of ablation success while reducing the radiation exposure to the patient and the physician.”
