Well not unless you are sadomasochistic and love the pain and anguish that could bring to you. I’m talking specifically here about staplers and advanced energy devices.
One of the biggest mistakes any company can do is to take a laparoscopic stapler - or laparoscopic advanced energy device and try to just bolt it straight onto a surgical robot.
Let me tell you why I think you need to be so cautious about doing this…
Features of a robotic instrument
It just does not seem clear to people that the inherent feature sets, physical structure of a laparoscopic stapler may not be the ideal features and physicality of a robotic stapler.
Let me start with a simple one. When you hold a robotic stapler in your hand you end up with a working length of the shaft. You have to understand how that translates into the effective working length of the stapler shaft. Ie. How much of that shaft is actually usable inside the patient when the end of the shaft joining the handle buts up against the top of the trocar.
Now in lap you can just push the trocar as deep as you want (to a limit) to get as much working length of the shaft as possible.
In a robot that no longer hold true. Because if you have a Z rail - and a trocar attachment for the remote centre - and a pivot point fixed by the robot. Then where the shaft meets the “handle” or rather interface for the drive pack will be set way way way further back from the trocar. And you can’t push the trocar deeper due to the limits of the robotic arm and it's inherent design.
So if your shaft length of a laparoscopic stapler was put across to the robot - you would now have a way shorter effective working length on the robot than in a lap case - and well you might not reach everywhere you need to reach.