Robots have been the most interactive and exclusive creations of science. Since, their original advent back in the time of 50th century, these devices have witnessed typical levels of advancement. But perhaps, the latest development evolved by a group of scientists from the University of Oxford in the UK is just simply incredible. Though the idea of the robotic surgeon has already been pitched in movies like Men in Black, Jame Bond etc, it has been transformed into a sharp reality by the team of researchers who created a physical robot which is able to perform optical surgeries on human eyes.
According to TechRadar, human eye surgery requires delicate steps like the removal of softest membrane layers from the retina. For evolving such retina based operations, incision of 10 microns deep at the back end of the eye is also necessary. This requirement is so delicate that even if a human hair is compared with such incision then that would also stand as strong having a 60 microns of capacity. The layers of the retina are so thin that even professional human surgeons often feel a sheer fear while operating on these. The newly introduced robotic being: the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device (R2D2), the team of researchers claimed that these typical and delicate operations can be done pretty easily without any failure.
Engadget, reported that to test the flawlessness of R2D2, a clinical trial was performed on 12 patients. Among them, six were operated by human surgeons and other six went through retinal membrane removal operations evolved by the R2D2. In the results, R2D2 outperformed human eye surgeons securing 10 times better surgery accounts. While human surgeons accounted five micro-hemorrhages with minor bleedings and two retinal touches, R2D2 only caused two micro-hemorrhages and one retinal touch.
The new R2D2 demonstrated a surprising tonne of versatility in terms its usability in human surgery. As, Dr Robert MacLaren, the director of the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device (R2D2) Program stated: "With a robotic system, we open up a whole new chapter of eye operations that currently cannot be performed."
