I often get asked about the reliability of the daVinci robot and can it break down. I also received a comment from a reader about a bad experience with her husbands robotic surgery.
In my 299 robotic operations, we have had several problems.
The daVinci robots are complicated mechanical devices. They can break down. Robots can break down in different ways. They can have hardware failures, such as broken arms. We had this happen to our 4th arm on our standard daVinci once and performed the operation with only 3 arms.
They can have software failures and the robot is made to stop working and will not allow you to move any instruments. This happened twice. Once it was for a robotic nephrectomy which I converted to a laparoscopic nephrectomy without trouble.
The other one was 3/4 of the way through a davinci S dvP and I brought in our standard robot, which was not in use, and finished the operation with our 2nd robot.
2 other operations were affected by robotic failures that were discovered before the operation was started and 1 case was cancelled and 1 was delayed until our robot was fixed.
Robots can break down occasionally, and contingency plans should be in place, including conversion to laparoscopy or open surgery.
I am not familiar with any injuries caused by robotic failure or malfunction.