Surgical robots: what comes next for the robotics companies

Robot-assisted surgery is a strong and growing trend, with major players such as Johnson & Johnson and Siemens making significant investments in the field.

From difficult to impossible

Today surgical robots let surgeons reach areas that are hard to access by hand. Tomorrow, nanorobots will let them reach areas that are entirely inaccessible by any other means.

Many types of surgical intervention stand to benefit. The constraint has never been the surgeon's skill but the physical limits of instruments and of the human hand at very small scales.

What it means for buyers

Robotic systems carry high acquisition costs and ongoing consumable and maintenance commitments. For a hospital evaluating one, the question is less whether the technology works than whether the case volume justifies the running cost.