This year, doctors in Thailand have successfully conducted Asia’s first robotically assisted brain surgery. The robotic technology was used to enhance the safety of the procedure and reduce the risk of postoperative complications. By using a robot during surgery, doctors were able to make a smaller incision and also reduce the duration of the surgery by about a half hour.
This was a great success and a step forward for the medical robotics industry. However, this advanced technology remains very expensive and is not yet covered by Thailand’s healthcare scheme. There is strong reason to believe that robotically assisted procedures will become integrated into more healthcare systems in Asia in the near future.