[the_erd]

Reminiscent of robotic surgery - it took years for surgical outcomes on these platforms to actually improve on average outcomes over manual surgery, and for individual surgeons, the learning curve was also unfavorable.

Prostate surgery was a leading application for robot surgery because it's challenging to access the prostate and remove cancerous parts while preserving nerve/prostate function. A decade ago I saw a robotic prostate surgeon at a leading (ivy) research university hospital present data showing that although it could achieve superior outcomes (quicker return to urinary continence, faster mean return time of erection), a surgeon needed to perform literally hundreds-to-thousands of robotic surgeries before they could achieve equivalency in outcomes, and then to get to superiority. A surgeon in training could achieve statistically average outcomes via traditional laparoscopic prostate surgery much faster. Mind you, this was literally a decade after the daVinci was approved for this type of surgery (FDA approved in 2001).

[iancmceachern]

I can confirm, David Vinci isn't better, it's just more profitable, and when given the choice of course patients will choose the cutting edge robot, but in the end it's not necessarily better for the patients. This is changing, there are several new players that will truly be better medicine soon.