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. CONCLUSION: 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.