The most common is surgery for prostate cancer – prostatectomy. In the US, for example, 40 per cent of prostatectomies are done by the robots.
The robots are also increasingly being used to perform heart surgery, like coronary artery bypass surgery and repair of heart valves and holes in the heart. Their big plus in heart surgery is that the surgeon can get to the heart through holes in the gaps between the ribs, without having to cut through the breastbone.
They can also be used for hernia repair, colorectal, stomach, gynaecological, oesophageal, pancreatic surgery – most types of surgery in fact.
The robots dramatically reduce blood loss (with less need for transfusions) and they reduce the risk of infection following surgery. There's less scarring, less post-operative pain, and hospital stays are reduced to three days compared to seven or eight for the traditional open prostate surgery.