Studies focused on the medical benefits of robotically assisted surgery abound. The sheer number of such articles, as well as the benefits that these studies highlight and quantify, portend a strong and growing market. However, other indicators, equally valid, also speak to a surgical robotics market poised for exceptional growth.

Despite the worldwide recession and high installation and capital equipment costs, the surgical robotics market is expanding at a rapid pace. For some types of surgical procedures, robotically assisted surgery is now becoming the standard technique.

While the medical benefits that robotic-assisted surgery provides patients and surgeons have been extensively documented, other drivers—some quantifiable, some not—are also promoting the use of robots and robotic-assistive techniques for an increasing number of surgical procedures. The end result is an unstoppable market ripe with opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs.

Bump in the Road for MIS

A recent Harvard Medical School study, viewed by many as critical of robot-assisted surgery, did not in fact address the subject, but oddly enough it highlighted many of the medical benefits of the approach. The study, conducted by surgeons and published in October 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that cancer patients who underwent prostate removal using minimally invasive surgery (MIS), or laparoscopic techniques, were more than twice as likely to experience incontinence or impotence 18 months after the procedure when compared with those who had their prostates removed using more traditional open-incision techniques. This study raised fears in certain quarters that the findings would have a negative impact on the booming surgical robotics market.