Is there a benefit to patients?

Does robotic surgery beat a human hand for hysterectomy? And if it does, at what cost?

Those were the questions posed by researchers at Columbia University...who analyzed data from nearly 265-thousand women who had hysterectomies between 2007 and 2010.

What they found? The number of laparoscopic procedures done through small incisions- increased from 24- percent in the first quarter of 2007 to 30-percent in 2010.

But the most significant trend, according to researchers... the rise of robotic-assisted hysterectomies. Robotic surgeries accounted for only ? of one percent of cases in 2007...but by 2010 they had increased to 9-and-half percent.

There was really no difference in the complication rates and the outcomes between women who had a laparoscopic compared to a robotic hysterectomy. On average the cost of robotic hysterectomy was over 2200 dollars greater than laparoscopic hysterectomy.

One in nine women in the United States will have a hysterectomy during her lifetime.

I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV with the news that can help you stay healthy, happy, and fit.