Robotic surgery in cancer care: opportunities and challenges

Malignancy-associated mortality, decreased productivity, and spiritual, social and physical burden in cancer patients and their families impose heavy costs on communities. Therefore cancer prevention, early detection, rapid diagnosis and timely treatment are very important. Use of modern methods based on information technology in cancer can improve patient survival and increase patient and health care provider satisfaction. Robot technology is used in different areas of health care and applications in surgery have emerged affecting the cancer treatment domain. Computerized and robotic devices can offer enhanced dexterity by tremor abolition, motion scaling, high quality 3D vision for surgeons and decreased blood loss, significant reduction in narcotic use, and reduced hospital stay for patients. However, there are many challenges like lack of surgical community support, large size, high costs and absence of tactile and haptic feedback. A comprehensive view to identify all factors in different aspects such as technical, legal and ethical items that prevent robotic surgery adoption is thus very necessary. Also evidence must be presented to surgeons to achieve appropriate support from physicians. The aim of this review article is to survey applications, opportunities and barriers to this advanced technology in patients and surgeons as an approach to improve cancer care.