Innovation. MIRA system — Making advanced surgical techniques more accessible

The MIRA surgical system, developed by Virtual Incision, is a portable, lightweight (2-pound) robotic platform designed for minimally invasive surgery, including procedures like colectomies and hysterectomies. This year, studies have expanded MIRA’s application to gynecological procedures, enhancing its versatility and potentially making advanced surgical techniques more accessible.

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is a type of surgery that involves smaller incisions, has transformed the surgical care landscape and patient outcomes through decreased pain, reduced complications, and shorter recovery time.

The introduction of robotic-assisted surgery has further expanded the use and effectiveness of MIS for complex procedures, offering surgeons more precision and control than what is possible with conventional techniques.

Despite its advantages, roughly 90 percent of US operating rooms (ORs) are still without access to the technology, most often due to complex logistics such as dedicated operating room space, specially trained staff, added steps during setup and turnover, and a substantial cost for the equipment. The “in-a-tray” form factor of miniRAS has the potential to overcome these challenges and could impact millions of US patients each year.

MIRA’s innovative tray-to-table design could offer healthcare facilities the advantages of robotic surgery without requiring them to organize the OR around the device, a current challenge of existing mainframe surgical robots. MIRA’s compact, approximately two-pound (less than one kg) framework is portable and designed to minimize setup time, which could enable any OR to be robot-ready within minutes.

Colectomy is one of the most complex multi-quadrant abdominal procedures, with nearly 50 percent still being performed as open surgery. Data from our IDE clinical study demonstrated that MIRA can successfully be used to mobilize the colon in a minimally invasive way,

MIRA’s broader commercialization and expansion of its roadmap for future indications includes gynecology, general surgery, urology, and other soft tissue and solid organ surgery. Studies of MIRA in gynecological procedures are planned in 2024. Additionally, a new iteration of the technology tailored to general surgery is in design and expected to be used in a first-in-human study outside the US later this year
MB Bureau