Skip to main content

Implantable miniature robot helps correct defects in internal organs

Kidney transplant waiting list dialysis surgery
Image used with permission by copyright holder
An implantable robot that helps stretch body tissue has been developed by a team of physicians and engineers at the Boston Children’s Hospital.

By slowly tugging on the tissue in question, the miniature robot is designed to lengthen tubular organs that exhibit stunted growth, offering a solution for rare birth defects affecting the esophagus and bowel, which can be debilitating to children and challenging to address surgically.

In the current standard of care for long-gap esophageal atresia, a rare defect in which part of the esophagus is missing, a child must be put into an induced coma and kept in intensive care for one to four weeks as the esophagus is manually lengthened.

In the robotic design, two rings are attached to the esophagus, which has been sewn together. A motor slowly tugs the rings apart, lengthening the esophageal tissue in the process. One of the main advantages of the new technique is that a child wouldn’t have to be sedated during the procedure.

In a recent study published this week in the journal Science Robotics, the researchers tested the device on the esophagi of pigs, who were able to eat normally and displayed no signs of discomfort while the robot was implanted.

“It’s hard to interview a pig to get all the details,” Pierre Dupont, head of the pediatric cardiac bioengineering lab and one of the authors of the paper, told Digital Trends, “but we would adjust the tension while we were there observing the pig or feeding it treats, just to make sure they weren’t in discomfort. We couldn’t notice anything. We had the option to turn the tension off while they were eating but they just weren’t bothered by it.”

Esophageal atresia is a rare defect that occurs in about 1 in 4,000 children in the United States. But treatment is complicated and requires specific surgical skills.

By designing a robot to do much of the work, Dupont and his colleagues hope to provide an automated solution that can treat patients irrespective of a surgeon’s technical proficiency with this exact procedure.

The researchers are now looking into whether their device could be used to treat the more common short bowel syndrome, which can inhibit a child’s ability to get nutrients from her food.

“If you’re bowel isn’t long enough you can’t absorb nutrients as well,” Dupont said.

The bowel is a more complicated organ than the esophagus however, so more research is needed to tailor the robot this specific procedure.

Editors' Recommendations

Dyllan Furness
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
This Google robot taught itself to walk, with no help whatsoever, in two hours
Google Robot

Do you remember that scene in Walt Disney’s Bambi where the titular fawn learns to stand up and walk under its own power? It’s a charming vignette in the movie, showcasing a skill that plenty of baby animals -- from pigs to giraffe to, yes, deer -- pick up within minutes of their birth. Over the first few hours of life, these animals rapidly refine their motor skills until they have full control over their own locomotion. Humans, who learn to stand holding onto things at around seven months and who begin walking at 15 months, are hopelessly sluggish by comparison.

Guess what the latest task that robots have beaten us at? In a new study carried out by researchers at Google, engineers have taught a quadruped Minitaur robot to walk by, well, not really having to teach it much at all. Rather, they’ve used a a type of goal-oriented artificial intelligence to make a four-legged robot learn how to walk forward, backward, and turn left and right entirely on its own. It was able to successfully teach itself to do this on three different terrains, including flat ground, a soft mattress, and a doormat with crevices.

Read more
In China’s hospitals, robots are helping to halt the spread of coronavirus
Orbbec coronavirus robot

As the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic continues to spread, hospitals in China have turned to a trio of robots to help halt the spread of the flu-type virus. The robots include a food delivery robot, sanitizing robot, and directional guiding robot that can help people avoid unnecessary human contact, hopefully preventing further spread of the virus.

The robots were developed by an international collaboration between several companies, including the U.S.-based Orbbec, which manufactures 3D camera sensors. They are currently being utilized across 10 provinces in Chinese hospitals, with others reportedly planning to implement the technology as well.

Read more
Meet the robot helping doctors treat coronavirus patients
meet the robot helping doctors treat coronavirus patients doctor

There have been five confirmed cases of the quickly spreading coronavirus in the U.S. Doctors have figured out a way to communicate with one of the infected patients without exposing themselves to the virus by using a robot. 

The robot is being used for the patient in Washington state at the Providence Regional Medical Center, according to CNN. Since the coronavirus can transmit from person to person, doctors at the hospital treating the patient have taken extra caution in the form of using a robot. 

Read more