A Review of Telesurgery in Extreme Settings: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Objective:

This article aims to provide a concise overview of the benefits, challenges, and suggestions pertaining to extreme forms of telesurgery, as documented in existing publications. In the future, medical personnel will have to overcome the challenges of providing health services in extreme settings, such as on the sea, humanitarian assistance missions, battlefields, underwater missions, and space missions. The advancement of telesurgery technology over the past 25 years will gradually resolve this problem.

Methods:

This study conducted a narrative review and a comprehensive literature search to explore the topics of extreme telesurgery. This article only included real attempts or experiments with telesurgery on humanitarian missions, on sea or hospital ships, underwater, on planes, and in space station settings. It has also summarized the benefits, challenges, and recommendations related to the extreme types of telesurgery and how they could be useful to shape the future of extreme health care.

Results:

Over the course of the past quarter century, telesurgery has undergone remarkable advancements, which have made it possible to receive effective treatment for even the most critical cases. When providing surgical care in difficult environments such as a battlefield, humanitarian mission, underwater, zero gravity planes, or in space, it is important to have comprehensive medical support for telesurgery in case the initial plan fails.

Conclusions:

The use of robotic systems in health care can augment human surgeons’ skills and provide accurate support for a broad range of surgical operations.