Asensus Surgical Inc (ASXC)

[the big guy]

Here is the statement: "Nine out of every 10 prostatectomies in the United States is performed with the assistance of a machine, "

contained in this article:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/the-fight-for-robots-in-canadas-operatingrooms/article35897282/

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Nine out of every 10 prostatectomies in the United States is performed with the assistance of a machine, Kelly Grant writes. But in its first ruling on the subject, the committee that advises Ontario on which health technologies to pay for said the benefits weren't significant enough to justify the cost – a recommendation that could send ripples through the whole country's system




Dr. Nathan Wong and a team of skilled health technicians at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton support a robot assisted prostatectomy on Thursday, July 27, 2017.

Dr. Nathan Wong and a team of skilled health technicians at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton support a robot assisted prostatectomy on Thursday, July 27, 2017.

Christopher Katsarov/the Globe and Mail



Kelly Grant Health reporter


Published August 7, 2017

Updated November 12, 2017


















The patient, a 70-year-old man with high-risk prostate cancer, was a Jehovah's Witness.

His religion was one of the reasons he decided to undergo surgery at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, home to a robot named da Vinci whose steady metal hands can remove a prostate with scant risk of the blood transfusions forbidden by the man's faith.

On a recent afternoon, the patient laid unconscious on an operating table as surgeon Bobby Shayegan and his team plunged a camera and three robotically controlled surgical instruments through small incisions in his abdomen.

Dr. Shayegan settled himself in front of a three-dimensional screen, clasped the two joysticks that controlled the tools inside his patient's pelvis and proceeded to cut, cauterize and stitch until he freed the man's prostate, pulling it out through one of the original incisions.

There was next to no blood.

"That was routine," Dr. Shayegan said afterward, holding the plum-sized gland that he and the robot had removed together. "Very routine."

This is how nine out of 10 prostatectomies are carried out in the United States. Robot-assisted surgery isn't the way of the future there – it's the way of now.

But in Canada, where robotic operations are much less common, a new recommendation against public funding for robot-assisted prostatectomies has physician leaders warning this country could fall even further behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to offering cutting-edge medical procedures.

In its first real ruling on a robotic surgery, the expert committee that advises Ontario on which new health technologies to pay for said there was no good evidence that robot-assisted radical prostatectomy is any better than conventional open surgery when it comes to controlling cancer or preserving urinary and sexual function.

The panel said the robot's other benefits – patients have smaller incisions, lose less blood, suffer less pain and leave the hospital sooner – were not significant enough to justify spending, on average, an extra $3,224 a case, a figure that does not include the millions that wealthy benefactors have spent buying the machines for Canadian hospitals.
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