The Future of Robotic Surgery: Snake-Like Bots That Glide Into Orifices

Letting a snake-like robot glide into your mouth and down your throat may sound a bit alarming. Letting such a robot glide into any of your other orifices may sound more alarming still. But the Flex Robotic System from Medrobotics, in Raynham, Mass., has earned high praise from a head and neck surgeon who has sent it snaking down 19 of his patients' throats as of today. "It really is changing the way I do business," says David Goldenberg, director of otolaryngology surgery at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. "It is the future of head and neck surgery."