Surgery Beyond Robotics: Directed Energy for Non-invasive Surgery and non-healthcare core technologies including AI and 5G/6G telecommunications ecosystem

Non-healthcare industries have used a wide spectrum of energy-based systems for many different purposes, from microchip manufacturing to artist creations, whereas only a small portion of these commercially available systems have been exploited by surgeons. Although many of the technologies are large and sophisticated image-guided systems that provide precise targeting at the molecular and atomic level, numerous other technologies are small, hand-held portable systems. Thus, many time-honored surgical procedures will be performed as outpatient or office procedures with small, hand-held directed energy devices. Within the full spectrum of energy, one of the best opportunities is photonics, with numerous other existing and emerging technologies that are being accepted by the clinical realm. Even as minimally invasive surgery (MIS) matures, and the fourth revolution in surgery in 25 years (robotic surgery) has become accepted as a major new standard of practice, a much more disruptive change is beginning with the next revolution: Directed energy for diagnosis and therapy (DEDAT). This advance takes MIS to the final step – non-invasive surgery. Building upon the success of MIS, and combining experience in lasers, photo-biomodulation, image guided surgery and robotic surgery, there are new energy-based technologies which provide the control and precision of photonic, ultrasonic, and other forms energy to begin operating (non-invasively) at the cellular and molecular level. The evidence has been building that there are numerous other critical non-medical core technologies which are absolutely required to make these revolutionary advances as a sustainable ecosystem, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), new 5G and 6G telecommunications, Edge Computing, Big Data, Computational Analytics, and Supercomputing, to name a few. This infrastructure is currently being implemented and will be globally available over the next 5-10 years.