This guide was made and is maintained by Alberto Rota. Contributes, issues and corrections are welcome at Alberto's email.

---

• Questions Specifically About the daVinci Surgical System
  • How much does the daVinci costs?
  • Which surgical specialties/procedures is the daVinci used for?
  • How many daVinci systems are installed in the world? How many in Italy?
  • Which types of tools are used in each surgical procedures?
  • Can you teleroperate the daVinci on long distances (example, surgeon in Milan and robot in Rome)?
  • Does an operating room need to be specially designed for the daVinci?
• Questions that are related to robotic surgery in general
  • Would you be operated by a robot?
  • Why should someone prefer the daVinci instead of a traditional surgery?

---

The robot itself costs 2 million dollars. Additional costs are the ones of the surgical instruments, which are reusable only around 15 times on average, so they must be bought quite frequently. This robot in particular was gifted to Politecnido di Milano in 2016 as it was being replaced by a newer model

In order of frequency of use:

1. General Surgery
2. Urology
3. Gynecology
4. Colorectal
5. Thoracic
6. Head and Neck surgery
7. Cardiac

As of the end of 2021, over 6730 da Vinci surgical systems have been installed in 69 countries around the world and more than 10 million minimally invasive robotic surgical procedures were performed, including more than 1.5 million surgical procedures in 2021. Italy has 120 installations.

In general, all tools are available to use at any moment. The tools are also interchangable intraoperatively. However there are tools (like the NEEDLE DRIVERS, mounted on this daVinci in the lab) that are very very common and used in almost every procedure, others that are used more rarely.

This is possible, especially with the modern connectivity tools like 5G. However, the robot is not designed for this purpose because:

1. The surgeon must be able to run to the patient in case of emergency
2. Communication with the OR staff is key Intuitive and other companies (like Asensus Surgical) have demonstrated surgeries-at-distance, but only for showcasing the robot.

FUN FACT: The daVinci robot was originally designed for the US army, with the robot on the warzone and the surgeon safe at home.

Usually this is not the case: the daVinci and other surgical robots have some spatial requirements, but 99% of the OR satisfy them. The most crucial requirement is the robot weight, that require strong floors (there is an extra reiforcement layer behing the daVinci at NEARLab)

---

YES, 100% yes with no hesitation

The main advantages of robotic surgery are, in order of importance:

1. Less invasiveness, you only need 2 small scars to access the organs instead of a big one
2. Reduced recovery times and post-operatory complications
3. Better precision and increased stability of intruments manipulation
4. Articulated/Wristed instruments have more dexterity in appraching spaces that are hard to reach. Standard laparoscopic instruments are rigid and cannot be bent
5. Better ergonomics for the surgeon