Robot-assisted Surgery

They haven't replaced surgeons in the operating room, but robots are lending a hand during surgical procedures that require the most delicate and precise movements. NCH Healthcare System has introduced two new robots within the past year to help physicians perform prostate, brain and spinal surgery. Dr. William Figlesthaler uses the da Vinci Surgical System in a minimally invasive procedure to remove cancer from the prostate gland. The robotic instruments are inserted through the patient's abdomen, and they replicate the movements of the surgeon's hands. The CyberKnife allows surgeons to perform stereotactic radiosurgery in the brain-where it had been limited in the past. The CyberKnife robot assures the radiation treatment is always exact.

Corneal Transplant

Dr. Mark Gorovoy, a Fort Myers ophthalmologist, has refined a procedure to correct corneal disease while cutting healing time significantly. For 50 years, the most accepted way to treat a diseased cornea was to cut it off and replace it with a donor transplant stitched into place. While the cornea was now clear, it could take up to two years to heal. Now Gorovoy and his colleagues have created a technique to strip away only a portion of the cornea, called the Descemet membrane, and replace it with donor tissue through a small incision. The patient gets the same clear results, but recovery is only about a month. Gorovoy was the first to perform Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) and has since taught the procedure to physicians from around the world. "Credit for thinking outside the box and pioneering the basis for this procedure go to several physicians, Drs. Gerrit Melles, Mark Terry and Francis Price," Gorovoy says. "I further modified their work to arrive at DSAEK. Even today changes are being innovated to further improve this procedure."

Predicting Kidney Stone Passage

With this new computer program, there's good news and bad news. The good news is: You'll find out when you're going to pass a kidney stone. Turns out, that's the bad news, too, but news you need, nonetheless. Dr. Sijo Parekattil, a urologist at Physicians Regional Medical Center (formerly Cleveland Clinic Florida Naples), helped create a neural network software program used with Microsoft Windows that will predict how long it will take for a kidney stone to pass, or whether surgery will be required due to the size of the stone. Parekattil says the program offers 80 to 90 percent accuracy.

The Trilogy Radiation Treatment

Not long after scientists learned that radiation could kill cancer, they began looking for a safer way to deliver it in the body. During the 100-plus years radiation has been used, the main fear was for the surrounding normal tissue that received unnecessary doses. While major advancements have taken place over the years, a new device by Palo Alto, Calif.-based Varian Medical Systems called Trilogy allows physicians to deliver more radiation in a shorter period of time in a smaller area. In addition, they can track the cancer through three-dimensional views of the tumor, allowing them to redirect the radiation beams, if necessary, which has been most beneficial to prostate cancer patients. 21st Century Oncology, which is headquartered in Fort Myers, recently invested in the Trilogy equipment for its Southwest Florida locations.

Injectable Drugs for Psoriasis

When it comes to attacking psoriasis-skin cells that grow too quickly, which produce red, scaly patches -the common approach has been to treat it from the outside. Topical remedies include creams and ointments of various types as well as ultraviolet-light therapy. Today physicians are tackling more serious cases of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis from the inside out with the very latest in injectable drugs recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Charles Camisa, a dermatologist at Physicians Regional Medical Center, is leading the fight with Enbrel, Raptiva, Humira and Remicade in his arsenal against psoriasis.

Hyperbaric Chamber

This looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. A patient is enclosed in a tube that is filled with 100 percent oxygen. Breathing only oxygen for up to two hours increases the amount of oxygen in the blood, which accelerates healing. Hyperbaric chambers utilizing the newest technology at NCH's Wound and Hyperbaric Center promote healing in wounds that have not healed on their own, commonly among diabetes patients. The extra oxygen in the blood helps red blood cells pass through the plasma and head quickly to the site of the wound or damaged tissue.

Women's HeartAdvantage

While some healthcare advances center around technology, sometimes it's human contact that makes the most impact. The Women's HeartAdvantage is a nationwide program geared to teach women about the greatest risk to their health: heart disease. For two years, Lee Memorial Health Systems' Donna Cook has been speaking to women's groups using the HeartAdvantage model. "The first year, we needed to bring awareness about heart disease for women," Cook says.

To get the point across, Cook enlisted the help of national authors to speak in Lee County, including Dr. Nieca Goldberg, who wrote Women Are Not Small Men, and Dr. Marie Savard, who wrote Are You an Apple or a Pear? The program includes screenings, health fairs, instructional handouts and a Web site, all of which served 10,600 patients here last year.