All kinds of developments are going to have an impact on surgery in the coming years. These include the increasing embrace of surgical robots and minimally invasive surgery, but also developments in imaging technology. Which developments have the biggest impact and what is their impact on patients?
This is what the Commission on the Future of Surgery at The Royal College of Surgeons of England has identified. This independent commission has 40 members with diverse expertise. "Technologies such as surgical robots, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and new imaging techniques are already changing the way surgical care is delivered and will continue to do so in the future. Developments in areas such as genomics, regenerative medicine and cell-based therapies could open up new opportunities for predicting and treating diseases that were untreatable just a few years ago," the researchers write on their website.
Which developments are going to have the biggest impact?
In their study, the researchers identified which technologies will have the biggest impact on surgery:
- Minimally invasive surgery with operating robots: By operating through only a few small incisions, these robots help reduce the impact on patients, allowing them to recover faster. The researchers point out that 2019 will see the introduction of a new generation of surgical robots that are both smaller, more versatile and cheaper than the current generation. This will help accelerate the embrace of surgical robots.
- Imaging technology: This technology is crucial to enable minimally invasive surgery, as surgeons can no longer see what they are doing with the naked eye. The researchers expect imaging technology to improve in the coming years, helping to make minimally invasive surgery more accurate. In addition, developments in imaging technology are going to help make faster and more accurate diagnoses. The researchers also point out that augmented reality and virtual reality platforms are already currently being used to train surgeons to perform surgical procedures. These tools can not only help improve the outcome of operations, but also standardise procedures and make training more widely accessible.
- Specialised interventions: In the long term, complex and specialised interventions will become increasingly common. Think of cell-based therapies, implantation of bio-printed tissue and organs, 'intelligent' prosthetics or transplantation of animal organs into humans. Such developments will require specialist teams working together in multidisciplinary centres, the researchers expect.
- Data collection and analysis: Data collection and analysis is going to play an increasing role in surgery in the future, among other things to better predict diseases and provide personalised care. The researchers do warn that patients and citizens in general need to be well informed about these initiatives and, in addition, standards need to be developed for the use of such data. The researchers also expect that patients will have more access to genomic tests. These tests can help gain a better understanding of disease states, both at the patient and population level.
Impact on patients
In addition, the impact of these developments on patients has been identified. For instance, the researchers expect surgery to increasingly evolve towards preventive care, disease prediction, early disease management and coordinated management of chronic conditions. In addition, the researchers predict that surgeries in the future will be performed even more precisely and with fewer implications, making outcomes increasingly predictable. The impact on patients will also be reduced, allowing them to recover from surgeries faster.
Also, minimally invasive technologies and developments in imaging techniques make it possible to operate on patients who currently cannot be operated on. In addition, more and more diseases will be able to be treated via surgery. For example, the researchers point out that functional brain imaging already makes it more radical and at the same time safer to use microsurgery to combat some brain tumours.
Developments in treatment techniques, among others, may make surgery unnecessary in some cases. For example, researchers point to developments in radio and immunotherapy that could potentially start to reduce the number of cancer-related surgeries.
Where is care delivered?
To improve quality of care, surgery has been increasingly centralised in recent history. Researchers predict that specialised procedures such as tissue transplants or stem cell therapies will continue to be performed centrally. This especially since these forms of care require multidisciplinary teams with specialised expertise. However, studies prior to such therapies can eventually be performed locally in many cases thanks to telemedicine and digital platforms. Digital technologies such as 3D printing for medical purposes are also likely to be available mainly in centralised locations.
However, with the increasing embrace of operating robots and other digital technologies, more routine surgical procedures can be performed locally more often, researchers expect. For instance, specialists can watch remotely to provide support for operations, making them easier to perform locally. Also, surgical robots are becoming increasingly versatile, cheaper and more compact, facilitating their embrace.
More information about the study and more findings from the researchers is available here. The research report (pdf) can be found here.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: The Royal College of Surgeons of England
Source photo: Pixabay / skeeze
