A decade or so ago, would a surgeon have thought it was just a fantasy to perform surgical procedures remotely by controlling a robotic arm? And that what he was seeing was a real surgical field of view magnified in three dimensions, using instruments similar to those used in our routine surgeries, and that he could operate from a distance instead of at the bedside. All of this is now a reality. In 2000, California-based Intuitive Surgical developed the world’s first da Vinci surgical robot in the true sense of the word, and in 2006 produced a second-generation robot that, in addition to having a 3D field of view, can be magnified 10-15 times to clearly see the lesion. Three years later, the third generation da Vinci robot was introduced, which has a clearer field of view and more flexible instruments for the robotic arm, allowing the arm rotation dimension to increase to 360 degrees. The surgeon controls each incision, separation, hemostasis, suturing, and knotting with both hands and feet as if he were manipulating a game machine, fine and accurate, while the patient is left with only a few small, minimally invasive incisions of less than 25px after surgery. Minimally invasive has been an important direction in the development of surgical techniques for decades, and has revolutionized surgery. Previously, the concept of minimally invasive surgery was often limited to “lumpectomy” techniques, but the introduction of the da Vinci Surgical Robot has further broadened the scope of minimally invasive surgery, representing the highest technology and cutting edge of modern minimally invasive surgery. At the same time, the da Vinci Surgical Robot is the only intelligent robotic minimally invasive surgical system approved by the FDA for surgical clinical treatment in the world today. It consists of three main components, namely the surgeon’s console, the bedside robotic arm system and the imaging system. The doctor’s console is located far away from the sterile area where the patient is, and the surgeon controls the instruments and high-definition camera with both hands and feet to complete a series of surgical operations; the bedside robotic arm system is located at the patient’s bedside, mainly providing support for the robotic arm and camera arm, and the assistant works at the bedside robotic arm system, whose main duty is to change the surgical instruments and camera lens to assist the surgeon to complete the surgery; the imaging system is The imaging system is a high-resolution 3D lens with a magnification of more than 10 times, providing the operator with a clearer and more precise view than in open surgery. Currently, there are more than 3,000 da Vinci surgical robots installed worldwide, but the U.S. domestic market is still the main market, with more than 2,200 units installed, and even some larger community hospitals are also equipped with da Vinci surgical robots. Europe is the second largest market in the world, and Intuitive Surgical has obtained CE certification from the European Union even before obtaining FDA certification. The world’s first da Vinci robotic surgery – da Vinci robotic radical prostate cancer surgery – was completed in 2000 at Frankfurt Hospital in Germany. Since 2006, when the PLA General Hospital introduced the first da Vinci surgical robot in China, its development in China has been very rapid. The latest data show that by the end of 2015, 42 da Vinci surgical robots have been installed and put into use in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), and four large hospitals, including the People’s Hospital of Peking University, have been installed and used in Beijing. So, how capable is the da Vinci Surgical Robot? The da Vinci robot can be used for general surgery, urology, cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery, gynecology and many other fields, and has completed more than 22,000 surgeries in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), of which 11,445 cases were completed in 2015 alone, which is approximately equal to the total number of all da Vinci robot surgeries completed in previous years, and the speed of installation and the number of surgeries is increasing rapidly. The rate of installation and the number of surgeries are still increasing rapidly. The da Vinci robot can be used for almost all procedures that can be performed with minimally invasive techniques, and compared to previous “lumpectomy” minimally invasive techniques, da Vinci robot surgery not only has many advantages such as reducing postoperative pain, wound aesthetics, perioperative complication rate and hospital stay without reducing safety, but also has its own unique advantages. It also has its own unique advantages, such as its three-dimensional 10-15 times magnified field of view and 7-way rotating instrument arm, which allows the operator to perform fine surgical operations in previously exposed and difficult areas. Of course, there is room for improvement in the operation of the da Vinci robot, as the robot system itself lacks haptic feedback, making it impossible to assess the texture of the lesion by hand as in open surgery, and the operator cannot perceive the strength of the robotic arm. Since the da Vinci robot has so many advantages, why is it not yet widely used in China? The main reason is its high price. The domestic price of the latest generation of da Vinci system is around 25 million RMB, which is mainly expensive in terms of consumables in addition to the cost of the mainframe, but also includes taxes, training fees, and clinical technical support. If this cost is evenly distributed to each surgery, it will cost tens of thousands of yuan more than the cost of traditional open surgery. The costs associated with da Vinci robotic surgery are not yet covered by China’s health insurance. This economic pressure has limited the diffusion of the da Vinci robot in China, but it still has a very strong development and application prospect due to its excellent performance. From a comprehensive perspective, the da Vinci robot has obvious advantages, as it can help doctors complete most of the difficult surgical operations, and patients have less surgical trauma and faster post-operative recovery; and its threshold in terms of price cost and patented technology will gradually decrease or even disappear with technological progress and scale effect. With the gradual promotion and application of the da Vinci robot in China and the introduction of domestic robots in the near future, more and more patients will enjoy the surgical dividends brought by technological advances.