Titan Medical Inc
Titan Medical and Bell Canada in successful telesurgery tests over 7,000 km
Titan Medical Inc Bell Canada announced they have successfully completed long-distance telesurgery tests using Titan's Phase B Amadeus robotic surgical system. Telesurgery is the performance of robotic surgery over a distance using a communication link.
During a one-week period, the tests were done over a roundtrip from Toronto to Vancouver, with a total communications distance of approximately 7,000 kilometres.
Transmitting low latency dual high definition signals for three dimensional vision and instrument commands with minimal time lag, or latency, were critical. Total end-to-end latency was approximately 300 milliseconds, and will be expected to shorten when the Phase C clinical testing platform is completed, the companies said.
Research has shown that 350 ms or less latency is required for surgeons to effectively perform telesurgery. Additionally, the amount of bandwidth needed to transmit the high definition video is being analyzed.
The extreme distances in these tests were implemented to generate worst-case scenario data. "In day-to-day applications, we expect the distances to be much shorter. These will likely be between neighbouring cities, a tertiary hospital catchment area or proximate offshore locations," commented Titan Medical president Dr Reiza Rayman.
Titan Medical in November 2009 announced a deal with Bell Canada's Health unit to develop, integrate and service telesurgery capabilities for Amadeus, a next generation robotic surgical system being developed to perform keyhole robotic minimally invasive surgery.
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