No safety benefit found in use of robot for hysterectomy

Surgery to remove the uterus using a $1.5 million robot from Intuitive Surgical Inc. doesn't reduce complications and may raise pneumonia risk compared with conventional less-invasive techniques, according to a second extensive study to find no added benefit from the devices. Researchers examined data from about 16,000 women who had hysterectomies for benign conditions in 2009 and 2010. The robot operations cost hospitals $2,489 more per procedure with a similar complication rate as the standard practice of removing the uterus with minimally invasive equipment, according to the study released in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.