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Area schoolchildren were fascinated by the dexterity shown by SAL the Surgical Robot. SAL II, scheduled to arrive later this year at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, will have even broader capabilities for use across a wide spectrum of minimally invasive surgical procedures and will be optimized for complex surgeries.
Area schoolchildren were fascinated by the dexterity shown by SAL the Surgical Robot. SAL II, scheduled to arrive later this year at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, will have even broader capabilities for use across a wide spectrum of minimally invasive surgical procedures and will be optimized for complex surgeries.

SAL II to operate at Memorial Medical Center

Submitted

Tue, May 31st 2016 07:35 pm

"SAL" the Surgical Robot is about to be supplanted by a new, improved model at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.

Chief of Surgery Venkat Kolli, M.D., F.A.C.S., and Chief of Robotic Surgery Donna Feldman, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., announced the medical center will soon obtain a new daVinci XI Surgical System. Also known as SAL II, the new system will represent a major upgrade over the daVinci SI Surgical System, which has been in use at Memorial since 2012.

"Over the past four years, the da Vinci Surgical System has afforded nearly 800 of our patients a minimally invasive alternative to open surgery that reduces postsurgical complications, pain and bleeding while speeding up recovery time," Kolli said. "The da Vinci Xi System has broader capabilities, can be used across a wide spectrum of minimally invasive surgical procedures and has been optimized for complex surgeries."

"Many of our surgeons have been exposed to this new technology and have been very favorably impressed," Feldman said. "As our surgeons are performing more and more robotic cases and fewer open surgeries, it certainly benefits our patients to implement this upgrade."

The daVinci XI system will be a $1.9 million investment in technology that includes:

•Enhanced patient safety through the use of Firefly fluorescence imaging, which provides surgeons with enhanced visualization during minimally invasive surgical procedures;

•A new overhead instrument arm architecture designed to facilitate anatomical access from virtually any position;

•A new endoscope digital architecture that creates a simpler, more compact design with improved visual definition and clarity;

•Smaller, thinner arms with newly designed joints that offer a greater range of motion than ever before; and

•Longer instrument shafts designed to give surgeons greater operative reach.

Company officials said the da Vinci Xi System was developed to further advance the technology used in minimally invasive surgery for complex diseases and conditions in gynecology, urology, thoracic, cardiac and general surgery.

Memorial's current robotic surgery system is dubbed SAL, which stands for "Save A Life," and was named by then fifth-grader Gabriella Baratta in a countywide naming contest for schoolchildren.

Since its arrival, SAL has been used by specially trained surgeons to perform general surgery, including single incision gallbladder removal, and high-end, often complex bariatric, colorectal, urological, obstetrical/gynecological and oncological/gynecological surgeries.

Ten Memorial Medical Center surgeons currently perform robotic surgery and at least three more are scheduled to begin this summer, Memorial President and CEO Joseph A. Ruffolo said.

"Under the leadership of Dr. Kolli and Dr. Feldman, robotic surgery has played a key role in the expansion of our elective surgery offerings and in the growth of the number of surgical patients we treat here," Ruffolo said. "When we first got SAL, there were some who wondered what we would do with a surgical robot. This year we will perform more than 250 robotic surgeries and we wonder what we would do without it."

To learn more about Memorial's minimally invasive robotic surgery program, call 716-278-4492 or visit http://NFMMC.org.

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