With the rise in demand for minimal invasive surgeries in the country, surgical robots are set to become integral part of surgery rooms of Indian hospitals in coming years.
The number of robotic surgery wherein incision is small and the loss of blood is very minimal, recovery of the patient is faster and the post-operative pain is also less, has increased significantly in the country.
In 2016 about 5,000 robotic surgeries were performed in the country using da Vinci Surgical Robot made by US based intuitive Surgical Vattikuti Technologies, the sole distributor of da Vinci surgical systems in India hoped that the number of robotic surgeries will grow to 8,000 in 2017.
Robots can be used in a number of surgical areas including urology, gynaecology, thoracic, paediatric, colo rectal, and head & neck to improve patient outcome. They can also be used in bariatric surgery.
The rise in per capita health expenditure, geriatric population and use of IT in healthcare has spurred the demand for minimal invasive surgery thus paving the way for use of surgical robots, said Gopal D Chakravarthy, chief executive officer of Vattikuti Technologies.
So far 47 hospitals in the country have started performing robotic surgery with the help of da Vinci surgical systems. They include AIIMS, PGI Chandigarh, Max Healthcare, Lilavati Hospital, Hinduja Hospital, Sri Ganga Ram Hospital, Apollo Hospitals, Saifee Hospital etc. Over 275 surgeons have been trained to perform robotic surgery so far, he informed.
Currently 51 da Vinci surgical robots are in operation in India. Vattikuti Technologies increased the number of surgical robots in the country by over 50 per cent in the 12 months ending June 30, 2017. The company hopes to add another 100 surgical robots by 2020 and grow the number of trained surgeons to 500 by 2020. It is planning to add many more tier 2 and 3 cities. Over the last year it added 6 cities - Calicut, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Nagpur, Pune and Vizag.
Talking about the operational challenges in adopting new technology like surgical robots in India, Chakravarthy said “Non availability of trained surgeons, cost of computer assisted procedures and equipment are all constraints challenging the spread of robotic surgery into tier 2 and 3 towns. To address these constraints, Vattikuti Technologies and Intuitive Surgical Inc. USA and Vattikuti Foundation have taken a leap by mounting the surgical robot on a mobile vehicle to showcase this new intervention to surgeons and hospital administrators in 20 cities over the next six months. The da Vinci Surgical Robot on the special mobile vehicle will simulate operation theatre setting as it gives exposure to doctors in smaller towns.”
Talking about his marketing strategy after expiry of da Vinci surgical systems' patent by this year, he said “Once the patent is expired, there will be a number of manufacturers. Intuitive Surgical has developed 4th generation Surgical robots and those are available in worldwide and in India for last many years. The patent for the 3rd generation surgical robots will run out in sometime. The development of procedures using a robot is a time consuming exercise and take several years for it to build and disseminate. Intuitive and thousands of surgeons around the world have worked for many years in several specialties and Vattikuti Foundation has been hosting bi-annual robotic surgeons conference for many years to share learnings and the best practices.”
Under the Vattikuti program, surgeons working at the Vattikuti Urology Centre at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit developed procedures for prostate cancer surgery (prostatectomy) which have become the gold standard in the field. Since then the Foundation has been working with surgeons around the world to pioneer various robotic procedures including one for recipient side kidney transplant, developed collaboratively with Indian surgeons from hospitals in Delhi and Ahmedabad, he added.
For a new manufacturer it will take a very long time to create procedures around their robots. More competition spells good news for the growth of robotic surgery, as the new players will only add to building greater awareness, he concluded.