Robotic Hysterectomies on the Rise, $2000 more than Laparoscopic Surgery

If you're skiddish about a doctor looking through all your innards, it's nice to know that health advancements are letting robots take care of some of that business.

According to reports, 10 percent of hysterectomies are now performed robotically.

Dr. Michael Zinner, chief of surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said there are advantages to robotically assisted surgery in certain situations.

"The robotic device is easy to learn," Zinner said. "The wrist on the machine gives you [greater flexibility] unlike a straight laparoscope that's more like a chopstick. If the surgeon has any slight tremor, the machine evens it out," he said. In cases such as prostate surgery, where the surgery must take place in a very confined space and there's a significant risk of nerve damage, the delicate, articulating robotic device can be ideal, he said.

In the current study, Wright and his colleagues reviewed data from more than 264,000 women who had a hysterectomy for a non-cancerous condition.

Robotically assisted hysterectomies were performed 0.5 percent of the time in 2007. By 2010, that number had jumped to 9.5 percent. The rate of laparoscopic surgery also increased during this time period, from 24.3 percent to 30.5 percent, according to the study.

Yet some are still up in arms as to whether this is a more proficient way to do things. Unfortunately, it's not cheaper. Robotically assisted hysterectomy's usually cost $2,200 more than the laparoscopic procedure, according to reports.

"The robotically assisted procedure was substantially more expensive," said the study's lead author, Dr. Jason Wright, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, in New York City.

Wright said more work is needed to determine which women would benefit from robotic hysterectomy.

"This data also raises a lot of questions about surgical innovations and the need to find ways to better study them before they diffuse into practice," he added.

While you might be old-fashioned and prefer the doctor and scalpel approach, it might be best to get with the times.

Results of the study are published in the Feb. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Want to see a robotic-assisted hysterectomy? Check out this video, courtesy of da Vinci Robotic.