The da Vinci Surgical System is one of the high-quality robotic systems used for laparoscopic surgeries. Compared to conventional laparoscopic surgery, this system may facilitate more accurate and safe operations. However, in the absence of adequate operator skill and knowledge, the system cannot provide substantial improvements in the operative technique. And the robotic surgery with da Vinci must be used to keep the best treatment for patients as conventional operations.

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Since da Vinci® surgical system was introduced to Japan as practical medicine in 2009, various types of gastrointestinal surgery have been developed. In esophageal surgery, the multi-articulated arms or 3D high definite vision of da Vinci® surgical system would be expected to provide more advantages because esophageal surgery is complicated and meticulous. In this paper, we show the current status of da Vinci® surgery for esophageal cancer.

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In this paper, we design a GPU-based algorithm for determining the minimum distance from the tip of CUSA scalpel to the closest blood vessel. The calculation time of GPU-based algorithm is to be O(1), which does not depend on shape complexity of blood vessels, i.e., their patch number. On the other hand, calculation time of CPU-based algorithm is to be O(n). Even if we use several kinds of hierarchical structures in positioning such as sorting in XYZ axes, calculation complexity of CPU-based algorithms is to be O(log(n)) at the best. As contrasted with this, when each STL is always converted into rectangular parallelepiped group in Z-buffer of GPU, we should accept quantization errors in XY-plane and Z-axis. Furthermore, so as to design parallel processing in GPU, we should omit all exclusive controls. As a result, distance precision and scanning range calculated by the GPU-based algorithm become worse than those done by the CPU-based algorithm. However, the precision (0.5mm) and range (0〜50mm) are fully accepted by the doctor’s request.

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