Were These Intuitive Surgical Results Aided By Robots?

An 18 percent year-over-year increase in sales of the company’s da Vinci surgical robot systems helped Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) beat Wall Street’s estimates for the fourth quarter.

On Tuesday, the medical device manufacturer reported a net profit of $175 million, or $4.25 per share for the three-month period, topping the $151 million, or $3.75 per share, reported in the same quarter last year and surpassing analysts’ predictions by 21 cents per share. Revenue also rose, increasing 23 percent to $609 million. In comparison, analysts had forecast results of $584.4 million.

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Da Vinci surgery robots, which are used increasingly for cardiac valve repair and gynecologic operations, drove the higher-than-expected results. In the three-month period, 175 systems were sold at $1.5 million each, representing a gain from 155 systems in the last quarter and 152 in the year-ago quarter. Additionally, the number of procedures in which the devices were employed grew by 25 percent…