New York—The advantages of robotic surgery to the surgeon are well known: restoration of 3D vision, better precision, finer dissection and so forth. Although the robot may enable more surgeons to perform minimally invasive procedures, it is not yet clear what aid it provides surgeons who treat patients with rectal cancer; at this point, the advantages may be more potential than realized.
Paraphrasing software engineer Grady Booch, Rahul Narang, MD, a colorectal surgeon at