Suturing living soft tissue with no hand on the instrument · Contested (since 2016)

In May 2016 Science Translational Medicine reported that the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot placed the stitches of an intestinal anastomosis on an anaesthetised pig, with results at least as good as the same operation done by surgeons by hand, by laparoscopy or with a robot under their control.

Be exact about what was autonomous. The robot planned and placed the stitches on tissue that had been marked with fluorescent tags, in an open abdomen, with a surgeon watching and free to intervene. In January 2022 the same team reported in Science Robotics that the machine did this through a laparoscope on four pigs, adjusting its plan as the bowel moved. No human being has been operated on this way, and no regulator has been asked to allow it. Everything around the stitch, opening the abdomen, judging whether the tissue will hold, deciding to abandon the plan, and answering afterwards for the leak that kills the patient, is still a surgical act performed by a surgeon.