A comparison of robotic and manual surgery for internal limiting membrane peeling

To compare the Preceyes Surgical Robotic System (Eindhoven, Netherlands) to manual internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling using the Eyesi surgical simulator (VRmagic, Mannheim, Germany) as the operative platform.

A comparative study was carried out with surgeons initially performing ILM peeling manually and then with the robot. Twenty-three vitreoretinal surgeons agreed to participate and all consented to the use of their surgical data from the Eyesi surgical simulator. Surgeons were given a 5-min demonstration of the devices and were allowed to practice for 10 min before attempting the membrane peel. Initially, the peel was performed manually and afterwards, this was repeated using the robot-controlled forceps. Surgical simulator outcome measures were compared between approaches.

The average time required for the procedure was 5 min for the manual approach and 9 min with the robot (paired t test, p = 0.002). Intraocular instrument movement was reduced by half with the robot. On average 344 mm was required to complete the ILM peeling with the robot compared with 600 mm using the manual approach (paired t test, p = 0.002). There were fewer macular retinal hemorrhages with the robot: 53 with manual surgery, 32 with the robot (Mann-Whitney U test, p = 0.035). Retinal injuries were eliminated with the robot.

Intraocular robotic surgery is still in its infancy and validation work is needed to understand the potential benefits and limitations of emerging technologies. Safety enhancements over current techniques may be possible and could lead to the broader adoption of robotic intraocular surgery in the future.