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Dr. Timothy Broderick, assistant professor of surgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati, told Gundersen Lutheran medical staff that NASA has been developing and researching technology to offer robotic surgery by remote voice control.
Surgery in space was not needed for short space flights, but surgery capability will be a must during a three-year mission to Mars, where round-trip travel would take 18 months, Broderick said.
“If a pilot needed an appendectomy, you would need to do that on board,” he said.
NASA has done some surgery in zero gravity on small animals and mannequins in simulators, he said. Surgeons have clipped, cut, grasped and sutured in simulated surgery in zero gravity with success, Broderick said.
“There is more force, more time and more errors than normal gravity,” Broderick said.
He said NASA has learned a sterile environment for surgery is just as important in space. Broderick showed video of a robot inserting a needle during remote, voice-controlled surgery.
Turbulence in space is a problem for surgeons, but NASA has developed a variable accelerator dampening device that minimizes it, he said. The device was tested in a van driven recklessly during a simulated surgery, Broderick said.
“It was good surgery despite real bad driving,” he said.
Broderick said he helped develop a trauma pod, which is fully robotic with instruments acting as doctors and nurses. A nurse can give the doctor a sponge on a voice command, he said. “The promise of robotic surgery has a ways to go,” he said.
But Broderick said money spent on space exploration is worthwhile because many of the new technological advances have been discovered and used in medical centers.
The gamma knife, a device used to treat brain tumors with a high dose of radiation therapy, was developed by the space program and now is used at hospitals such as Gundersen Lutheran, he said.
With all of its benefits from telemedicine to satellites, NASA spends less than 1 percent of the federal budget, or $16 billion a year, Broderick said. “The new technology we develop in space serves us well on the ground,” Broderick said.
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com or (608) .
