Context: The purpose of this article is to review the history of robotic surgery, its impact on teaching as well as a description of historical and current robots used in the medical arena. Summary of evidence: Although the history of robots dates back to 2000 years or more, the last two decades have seen an outstanding revolution in medicine, due to all the changes that robotic surgery has made in the way of performing, teaching and practicing surgery. Conclusions: Robotic surgery has evolved into a complete and self-contained field, with enormous potential for future development. The results to date have shown that this technology is capable of providing good outcomes and quality care for patients.

Contexto: El objetivo de este artículo es hacer una revisión de la Historia de la cirugía robótica, su impacto en la enseñanza, así como una descripción de los robots antiguos y actuales usados en el campo médico. Resumen de evidencia: Aunque la historia de la robótica tiene 2.000 años o más, las últimas dos décadas han mostrado una marcada revolución en Medicina, debido a todos los cambios que la cirugía robótica ha provocado en la manera de hacer, enseñar y practicar cirugía. Conclusiones: La cirugía robótica ha evolucionado hasta ser un campo aparte, con un enorme potencial para su futuro desarrollo. Los resultados muestran hasta ahora que esta tecnología es capaz de ofrecer buenos resultados y un adecuado tratamiento a los pacientes.

We demonstrated that administration of interferon gamma (IFN-<FONT FACE="Symbol">g</font>) to the inbred "l" strain of pregnant rats conferred partial resistance on their offspring to challenge with Trypanosoma cruzi. We now examine if this intervention also modifies the reportedly immunodepressed cellular responses which occur during chronic infection. Offspring were born to mothers undergoing one of the following procedures during gestation: subcutaneous injections of recombinant rat IFN-<FONT FACE="Symbol">g</font>, 50,000 IU/rat, five times/week for 3 weeks, which was started on the day of mating (IFN-Mo); infection with 106 trypomastigotes of T. cruzi at 7, 14, and 21 days after mating plus IFN-<FONT FACE="Symbol">g</font> treatment as given to the former group (TcIFN-Mo); the same protocol except that physiological saline was injected instead of IFN-<FONT FACE="Symbol">g</font> (Tc-Mo); injection of physiological saline only (control-Mo). All offspring groups (N = 8-10/group) were infected at weaning and were assessed 90 days later for their adjuvant-induced arthritic response or levels of major T cell subsets in spleen and lymph nodes. TcIFN-Mo and IFN-Mo offspring showed a reestablished arthritic response, which remained within the range seen in controls. Immunolabeling studies on parallel groups of 90-day-infected offspring showed that the inverse CD4/CD8 cell ratio that is usually seen in lymphoid organs from these chronically infected rats (median 0.61) appeared to have recovered in the TcIFN-Mo and IFN-Mo groups (median 1.66 and 1.78, respectively) and was not different from uninfected controls (1.96). These studies indicate that early stimulation with IFN-<FONT FACE="Symbol">g</font> is able to reverse the immunosuppressive state that is usually present during the chronic period of the experimental infection.