Slashing your recovery time from six to eight weeks to a couple of days? It’s happening, for women having hysterectomies and other gynecological surgeries, thanks to robotic-assisted surgery.

According to obstetrician/gynecologist Gary Besser, MD, the daVinci platform for robotic-assisted surgery is now allowing clinicians everywhere to offer surgical procedures to women for hysterectomies, myomectomies, and urological conditions that used to require months of healing and long stays in the hospital. 

The Connecticut-based surgeon, who’s also an assistant professor at New York Columbia/Presbyterian, says that he now performs three to four major surgeries every day using robotic-assisted surgery. In the past, he says, he’d be lucky to do one.

What makes this kind of surgery so appealing, Besser says, is that surgeons can see everything so much better. “Everything’s magnified ten times,” he says. “And with HD3D, your visualization is just so much better.”

Even more important, the robot’s arms can rotate 360 degrees, and in seven different ways. “Can’t do that with your hand.” Besser says.

Hysterectomies used to require at least a week in the hospital. But today they’re actually done as day surgeries. “After seven hours in the operating room, you go home the same day,” Besser says.

Robotic surgery allows surgeons to use much smaller incisions, particularly important for those who have trouble healing, like diabetics and the obese, because recovery is quicker, with less chance of infection, and since the procedure itself can go more quickly, less narcotics need to be used during the surgery. There are no longer prolonged hospital stays and many fewer complications, using daVinci, Besser says.

The only downside? The robotic equipment costs $2 million, and can only be used 10 times. But patients are billed the same as for the traditional laparoscopic procedure.

A four-year study at a urology institute in Detroit recently concluded that robotic-assisted surgery is safe, according to Tim Hornyak at cnet.com. While the test was conducted on prostate cancer patients, where robotic-assisted surgery is now the standard of care, gynecologic surgeons, who have been using it since 2005, have also found the same to be true.

Robotic-assisted surgery is used in many different kinds of procedures today, including cardiac, partial knee replacement and it’s even been found to be safe for children.

“It’s a win-win,” says Besser.

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Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM (News - Alert) in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.