That this procedure is "widely" used in the US is news to me, too. But robotic surgery is an area in which Dr. Alain Carpentier, the French valve surgery pioneer, has been active.
Dr. Carpentier pretty much invented mitral valve repair -- see the paper he wrote in the 1980's, "The French Correction." He's the "Carpentier" in the "Carpentier-Edwards Bovine Pericardial Valve."
http://sidebar.cnn.com/HEALTH/9902/23/robotic.surgery/
<< Surgery by remote control: Using a computerized robotic system, a surgeon controls the operation procedure from the other side of the room.
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February 22, 1999
Web posted at: 4:15 p.m. EST (2115 GMT)
From Medical Correspondent Al Hinman
PARIS (CNN) -- The operation is delicate enough under normal conditions. But for Dr. Alain Carpentier, repairing a disease-damaged heart valve is made more complicated by the patient's location -- another part of the room.
Carpentier is controlling the delicate procedure by remote control, using an experimental, computerized robotic system designed to advance the potential of minimally-invasive surgery.
Some doctors believe the endoscopic procedure allows them to perform the most delicate of operations with little risk and post-operative discomfort.
If robotic surgery continues to show it's safe and successful, it could mean doctors may need to cut across the chest and crack the rib cage to perform open-heart surgery only in rare cases.
"For the patient, the benefit is obvious," said Carpentier, a medical professor and world-renowned French cardiac surgeon. "Small incisions mean less pain, less bleeding, less operative trauma, faster recovery."
Lazare Winn was the first patient ever to undergo a robotic, endoscopic heart bypass, in May 1998.
He was up and celebrating his 70th birthday just days after surgery, avoiding the usual months of painful recovery associated with a conventional bypass.
During the procedure, robot arms are positioned over the patient. Inside, new, highly-flexible surgical instruments the size of a pencil perform the work.
"You have to imagine how the surgeon feels being inside the heart himself," Carpentier said.
Robotic surgical devices also offer the potential of possible long-distance surgery, with patients on one continent and the specialist on another. But first, they have to win the confidence of more doctors -- as well as regulatory approval in the United States and abroad.>>