IIT Madras Creates India’s First Robot To Reduce Pain For Spinal Patients

Researchers from IIT Madras have recently made a spine-surgery robot that can reduce pain, as well as surgery costs, for patients. This is the first time India has managed to produce this kind of robot. With it, patients can avoid suffering from unnecessary pain or long treatment time.

According to a report from PTI, this spine-surgery robot is designed with a built-in robotic system that allows doctors to control and guide its operation via images. Unlike common surgeries, the surgery conducted by a robot doesn’t create a big cut on the patients’ body.

As the project head, Professor Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam said,

The Ministry of Human Resource Development has now funded this project which was under development of the Uchhatar Avishkar Yojana (also known as UAY). The advanced technology, in fact, was introduced at the TechEx event, IIT Delhi.

Sivaprakasam asserted that their product could enhance the safety for patients and limit the radiation exposure surgeons may have to face. In addition, the researchers developed an external position tracker to provide necessary guidance during the surgery, which helps surgeons to keep better track of the positions of surgical instruments, as well as to determine the exact position of the robot.

He further explained:

The application of robots in surgeries is no longer a new story; however, the initiative from IIT Madras must be the first robot that can conduct surgeries on the spinal cord in India.