Current and Future Use of Robotic Devices to Perform Percutaneous Coronary Interventions: A Review

R obots are electromechanical machines that can be used to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks in place of humans. Although robots are now widely used in industrial mass production, it was not until the mid-1990s that robots were first introduced to clinical medicine. Medical robots are gaining widespread use in surgery because of advantages such as high precision and speed, reproducibility, greater access to areas under operation, and machine endurance. In cardiovascular medicine, medical robots are routinely used for minimally invasive cardiac surgery, with the da Vinci system (Intuitive Surgical) for mitral valve repair and for coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. Robots are also being evaluated for clinical use in endovascular surgery, electrophysiology, and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Despite accumulating evidence that supports the feasibility and safety of robotassisted PCI, robot-assisted coronary interventions are now performed only in a limited number of centers worldwide. Although the interventional cardiology community is more aware today of the many potential hazards of working in the catheterization laboratory, interventional cardiologists have been slow to accept robotic technology, given concerns about learning curves and costs. For the purpose of this narrative review, a literature search was performed using available search engines including Medline (Ovid), Web of Science (Thomson Reuters), PubMed, and Google Scholar. The search was last updated in January 2017.