CIS news

• A recent study from Hopkins Medicine reviewed all reported robotic surgical complications. The procedures most commonly associated with death were gynecologic (22 of the 71 deaths), urologic (15 deaths) and cardiothoracic (12 deaths). The cause of death was most often excessive bleeding. In cases where patients survived, hysterectomy by far had the most complications (43 percent of injuries). It was concluded that complications remain severely under-reported despite FDA's compulsory MAUDE database.
• Our friends at WPI are moving ahead with NIH support to build MR-compatible robots
• Soft robotics is being investigated for surgical applications by DARPA (within the M3 program)
• Some more technical details about the M7's parabolic test flight with NASA in 2007
• Fred Moll (the guy behind Restoration robotics, former CEO of Hansen Medical, former CEO of Intuitive) now joins the board of  Excelsius Surgical, a startup from Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI), focusing on navigation technology for spine applications (earlier this year, they raised 200K seed money)
• Mazor's robotic system performs first-ever brain surgery
• MIS robotic prostatectomy found beneficial to patients
• Prof. Patel joins the board of IMRIS
• Finger-robot to treat brain tumors (a new device from University of Maryland)
• A nice article on the status of robotic surgery

• OFDI, MPLSM and other exciting new imaging technologies to come to the OR 
•  3D printed prosthetic hands 
•  Cool new neural control for lower limb prosthetics

• Design of Medical Devices Conference – Europe Edition 2013   October 7-9, Delft, the Netherlands
• Get ready for the next IPCAI in Japan! Still linked to CARS, happening in Fukuoka in June.