Papers
3
Total Citations
150
H-Index
3
About
Elisabetta Firinu is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of surgical robotics and human-computer interaction, whose work is reshaping both the practice and perception of modern surgery. Her research centers on two critical domains: haptic feedback in robotic systems and trans-oral robotic surgery (TORS) for head and neck cancers. In her landmark 2015 study, Firinu experimentally investigated whether visual feedback could substitute for tactile feedback in robotic surgery—a foundational question for the field—garnering 91 citations and influencing the design of next-generation surgical interfaces. Her impact is equally profound in oncology, where she led a meta-analysis on TORS for detecting primary tumors in head-neck unknown primary cancers (32 citations) and published a comprehensive 9-year institutional experience on TORS for oropharyngeal carcinomas (27 citations). This latter work demonstrated that TORS, with or without adjuvant therapy, has fundamentally changed the surgical management of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas, offering patients improved outcomes. Firinu’s dual expertise—bridging the engineering challenge of haptics with the clinical reality of cancer care—positions her as a unique voice in translational research, making her work essential reading for anyone interested in the future of robotic surgery.
Research Focus
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