Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 1, 2025
Robotics in Surgery: A Modular Robotic Platform Driven Gastric Wedge Resection
Published on: February 7, 2025
Robot-assisted gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection significantly improves procedure time at challenging
Sang Hyun Kim1, Taebin Kwon2, Hyuk Soon Choi3,4
1Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine, 73 Goryeodae-ro, Seongbuk gu, Seoul, 02841, South Korea.
Background:
Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is the standard treatment for early malignant stomach lesions. However, this procedure is technically demanding and carries a high complication risk. The level of difficulty in performing ESD is influenced by the location of the lesion. In our study, we aimed to investigate and analyze the effectiveness of robot-assisted ESD for lesions situated in challenging locations within the stomach.
Methods:
We developed a gastric simulator that could be used to implement various gastric ESD locations. An EndoGel (Sunarrow, Tokyo, Japan) was attached to the simulator for the dissection procedures. Robot-assisted or conventional ESD was performed at challenging or easy locations by two ESD-trainee endoscopists.
Results:
The procedure time was remarkably shorter for robotic ESD than conventional dissection at challenging locations (6.2 vs. 10.2 min, P < 0.05), mainly due to faster dissection (220.3 vs. 101.9 mm2/min, P < 0.05). The blind dissection rate was significantly lower with robotic ESD than with the conventional method (17.6 vs. 35.2%, P < 0.05) at challenging locations.
Conclusion:
The procedure time was significantly shortened when robot-assisted gastric ESD procedures were performed at challenging locations. Therefore, our robotic device provides simple, effective, and safe multidirectional traction for endoscopic submucosal dissection at challenging locations, thereby reducing difficulty of the procedure.
