{"id":175216,"date":"2021-07-19T18:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=175216"},"modified":"2021-07-19T13:31:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T17:31:28","slug":"robotic-surgerys-big-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/07\/robotic-surgerys-big-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"Robotic Surgery’s ‘Big Difference’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The patient just feels better afterward. It makes a big difference. — Dr. Eric Girard<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Eric Girard is a colorectal surgeon at UConn Health. (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Traditional surgery and less-invasive laparoscopic surgery still have limitations when it comes to access, visibility, and precision. Robot-assisted surgery can overcome those obstacles \u2014 and in many cases, eliminate them \u2014 as Dr. Eric Girard<\/a>, a colorectal surgeon at UConn Health, explains.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why is robotic surgery becoming more prevalent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for patients who want to have the fastest recovery, fastest return to work, and least amount of discomfort, one of the biggest things that we can offer them is a safe, effective procedure. In many cases we can reduce the patient\u2019s stay to less than 24 hours, compared to three or four day with laparoscopic surgery or seven to 10 days with major open surgery, and the patient just feels better afterward. It makes a big difference.<\/p>\n

For example?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re doing intracorporeal anastomosis, essentially putting together pieces of the bowel inside the abdomen. It leads to decreased ileus (slow down of the intestine), decreased anastomotic leaks (a potential complication from gastrointestinal surgery), shorter length of stay, and better recovery. People are home sooner, back to work sooner, and overall people are doing better.<\/p>\n

To explain further, your bowel is most likely in a set position. When we have to take a segment out, we have to move and manipulate the bowel and get it freed up from its attachments so that it will then reach the other portion of the bowel when we put it back together. That act of putting the two ends back together is considered an anastomosis.<\/p>\n

What are some other procedures for which robotics can make a big difference?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Colon cancer, rectal cancer, diverticulitis, inflammatory bowel disease, those are the big ones, for me at least. Anyone who has those problems, we can deal with them robotically. We\u2019re removing cancerous tissue, or in the case of diverticulitis, we\u2019re removing a segment of inflamed colon and putting it back together so people don\u2019t get recurrent infections that cause them a lot of pain, time in the hospital, and potentially holes in their bowel that lead to ostomies and needing a bag.<\/p>\n

When you have someone who\u2019s got a lot of inflammation, whether it\u2019s diverticulitis, people with fistulas, people with Crohn\u2019s disease, things like that, you can really make a big difference robotically. When you have inflammation, the body tends to create this hard shell around whatever is the source of that inflammation. It makes it very difficult to find the right area to be between, let\u2019s say two organs that are fused together. The robot helps me do that a lot better than laparoscopic surgery would. When you have a connection from the colon to the bladder, laparoscopically, most people will have to open it up and put a hand in there to feel that connection, whereas robotically I can manipulate the bladder. Instead of having just straight tools, I can go behind it with my wristed instruments and manipulate in ways that I can see that plane. And I have a third arm as opposed to just two hands.<\/p>\n

What is it about the robotic approach that makes it advantageous?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Image
Robotic surgery employs advanced technology such as indocyanine green angiography, which provides a visual on blood supply, illustrated here in the bowel. This enables the surgeon to make real-time decisions based on actual blood flow. (Image provided by Eric Girard)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can see in 3D vision, I have the ability to use a fluorescent dye where I can ensure, with 100% surety, that there\u2019s good blood flow to the area of my anastomosis. I have better visualization and I\u2019m much more sure about exactly what I’m cutting when I’m cutting it.<\/p>\n

When you have the robotic instrument, it literally is the same instrument as you would use in your hands, and whatever you would have at your fingertips, whatever surgical instrument your surgeon would be using, is exactly what the robot allows you to do. So if I wanted to have a scissor, I put the scissor in my tips and I can literally use it like it\u2019s my fingers, or I\u2019ll have a grasper and I\u2019ll use it, and I can put it in any direction. It\u2019s mimicking my movements, and it takes away any sort of tremor and it stabilizes the instruments. It can either make your movements very fine, and if you have bigger movements it actually scales them down to really fine movements. And you\u2019ve got significant zoom effect, so you can really see right up close.<\/p>\n

How does robotic surgery fit in to the concept of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all part of getting patients back to normal sooner and back home sooner. Enhanced recovery after surgery has a lot to do with not taking them out of their everyday pattern. We don\u2019t starve them; we let them eat as soon as they can. We try to get the patients up and walking right away. If they\u2019re doing everything that they would otherwise be doing at home, then they can do it at home. We have people available 24\/7; if they have any problems they can call and get help, but most people don\u2019t. Once they check all the boxes that they\u2019re doing well, they go home, and that gets people back to their families sooner.<\/p>\n

We can do everything inside the body, so that means there\u2019s less tissue damage in the process of bringing the bowel together. The goal is to put everything back together in a way that\u2019s going to keep on working, and with as little a change, as little an interruption to your normal life.<\/p>\n

Who else is doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of other services are using it similarly, GYN for their endometriosis for example. Our gynecologic oncologists are using it. We have thoracic surgeons who are taking sections of lung out with it. We have advanced hernia repairs with many of our general surgeons. Everyone is adopting this advanced minimally invasive approach because most people feel like they\u2019re giving the patient a better opportunity to get out of the hospital sooner and to have a better recovery.<\/p>\n

Learn more about surgery at UConn Health.<\/em><\/a>, or call <\/em>860-679-8080<\/em><\/a> to arrange a consultation.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traditional surgery and less-invasive laparoscopic surgery still have limitations when it comes to access, visibility, and precision. Robot-assisted surgery can overcome those obstacles \u2014 and in many cases, eliminate them \u2014 as Dr. Eric Girard, a colorectal surgeon at UConn Health, explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":175213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,1868,2294,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-175216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-meds","category-all-surgery","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-10 16:49:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175216"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175273,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175216\/revisions\/175273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/175213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175216"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=175216"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=175216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}