What is the difference between robotic surgery, regular open surgery and laparoscopic surgery?
Dr. Peter Pinto: Robotic surgery is done in the same fashion as open surgical removal. The difference is that what originally required a large incision (from the belly button down to the pubic bone), now only requires 4 to 6 small incisions, each about 5 mm-12 mm in length. These incisions allow instruments to pass through ports (a hollow cylinder through which instruments can pass), keeping the surgeon’s hands outside the patient. Prior to the advent of this machine, surgeons like myself were performing these procedures laparoscopically. Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy is a less invasive approach to open surgery and uses the same ports to pass instruments as the robotic platform. During laparoscopy, the surgeon’s hands are physically attached to the instruments that go through the ports and the instruments themselves are limited in their range of motion. In addition, the laparoscopic camera that is placed inside the abdomen to visualize the prostate displays the image onto a screen
