Medtronic Touch Surgery Aide, Johnson & Johnson OTTAVA, and Garmin CIRQA

Three announcements in four days. Two of these are about operating theatres and robotic surgery, is it giving anyone else ‘Alien’ vibes?

Amrit Bance

6 min read

Three announcements in four days. Two of these are about operating theatres and robotic surgery, is it giving anyone else ‘Alien’ vibes?

Four Arms - Snap Snap

The FDA has granted De Novo authorisation to Johnson & Johnson's OTTAVA, the first soft tissue surgical robot with its arms built into the operating table. It covers upper abdominal general surgery, from gastric bypass and sleeve through to cholecystectomy and appendectomy. J&J puts the footprint at 30 to 50% less than traditional boom and cart mounted systems. Inguinal hernia repair is still in trial and not covered. For cramped theatres, this might help free up floor space.

Medtronic's First Real-Time Surgical AI Does One Thing

Medtronic previewed Touch Surgery Aide at the Society of Robotic Surgery meeting last week, an AI platform built on NVIDIA's Holoscan, CUDA and TensorRT that runs models against live surgical video mid-procedure. The first application on it, Instrument Exit Point, has FDA clearance for use with the Hugo robot, and what it does is give the team a visual notification when a selected instrument leaves the visible field of view. Small, useful, but is it really that interesting? Medtronic says the wider Touch Surgery ecosystem is already in more than 1,500 operating rooms, so the distribution is sitting there waiting for applications.

Garmin’s CIRQA Smart Band

Garmin's CIRQA Smart Band is out now for $199.99 or £179.99, screenless, running up to 10 days per charge with no subscription for the core features. It tracks heart rate, Body Battery, stress, Pulse Ox, skin temperature, sleep stages, HRV, VO2 max and training readiness. However, to see the data… you need to open your phone. Garmin states CIRQA is not a medical device and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or monitoring of any medical condition, additionally Pulse Ox is not available in all countries. The skin temperature cycle feature gives period predictions and past ovulation estimates, and Garmin states outright that it is not for conception or contraception. Syncing to the FDA-cleared Natural Cycles app needs a separate Natural Cycles subscription. There is no onboard GPS either, it borrows your phone's. Do we love screenless wearables because we should all switch off more?