The impact of latency on surgical precision and task completion during robotic-assisted remote telepresence surgery.
OBJECTIVE
It has been suggested that robotic-assisted remote telepresence surgery with a signal transmission latency of greater than 300 ms may not be possible.


METHODS
We evaluated the impact of four different latencies of up to 500 ms on task completion and error rate in five surgeons after completion of three different surgical tasks.


RESULTS
The surgeons were able to complete all tasks with a latency of 500 ms. However, higher latency was associated with higher error rates and task completion time (TCT). There were significant variations between surgeons and different tasks.


CONCLUSIONS
Surgeons are able to complete tasks with a signal transmission latency of up to 500 ms. The clinical impact of slower TCT and increased error rates encountered at higher latency needs to be established.
Anvari
Mehran
M
Centre for Minimal Access Surgery, St. Joseph's Healthcare, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. anvari@mcmaster.ca
Broderick
Tim
T
Stein
Harvey
H
Chapman
Trevor
T
Ghodoussi
Moji
M
Birch
Daniel W
DW
McKinley
Craig
C
Trudeau
Patrick
P
Dutta
Sanjeev
S
Goldsmith
Charles H
CH
D002983:Clinical Competence; D006801:Humans; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D012371:Robotics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013997:Time Factors