For more than 10 years, ophthalmologists have experimented with the use of robots in ophthalmic surgery beginning with the adaptation of a da Vinci robot by a team at the University of Strasbourg¹ and later with the development of the Preceyes robot for eye surgery² ​

At present, there are at least six companies working on ophthalmic surgical robots, including the Polaris from Horizon Surgical​

The key question is can these technologies leapfrog current standard of care? What is required to achieve that level of advancement given the failure of other approaches to replace currently used systems?