[Robotics. A new dimension in otorhinolaryngology?]

Robots have entered into many aspects of human life, including operative medicine. However, current medical robots have nothing in common with anthropomorphic robots as known in science fiction novels. We distinguish manipulators, working on a master-slave principle, from robots. Robots can be defined as "automatically controlled multitask manipulators, which are freely programmable in three or more axes." The success of robots is based on their precision, lack of fatigue, and speed of action. Potential fields of application for manipulators lie in endonasal surgery and for robots in lateral skull base surgery, including mastoidectomy and drilling a cavity for implantable hearing systems and cochlear implants. We performed a number of experiments at the department of anatomy with respect to robotic lateral skull base surgery. This paper reviews the current use of manipulators and robots in operative medicine and their potential applications in otorhinolaryngology.