Robot technology makes surgery easier on patient

Robot technology in the operating room is making a delicate procedure more precise and easier on the patient.

It's a strange sight, though. A machine that looks like an electronic spider hovering above a patient on the operating table, with the surgeon seated six feet away at a console. His wrists and fingers are moving, but the tools he is manipulating are deep inside the patient's body.

In this case, the doctor is gynecologic surgeon Dr. Vincenzo Sabella. His patient is a 37-year-old woman having her fallopian tubes re-attached. They had been tied-off in a procedure 13 years ago. But now, she wants more children.

The tiny instruments doctors use for the delicate procedure are steady and easily manipulated.

"You can do the same movements with the instruments that you can do with your wrist. That makes it much easier to suture and to move inside the body without traumatizing the tissues too much," said Dr. Sabella.

The cameras and tools are inserted through plastic ports, which leave only five tiny holes in the abdomen.

When the surgeon sees a repair is complete, he shoots dye through the tubes to make sure they are open.

These patients have an 80 to 90 percent chance of getting pregnant. Plus, the pain is much less and their recovery from surgery is much easier than after a conventional open operation.

Patients with reversed tubal ligations do have a greater chance of an ectopic, or tubal, pregnancy, so they have to be closely monitored when they conceive.