2024-10-05 09:13:23
During a conference in Bordeaux in September, two surgeons operated on patients who were in China using robots. A technique that can help patients and professionals around the world.
Operations carried out more than 8,000 kilometers away. During a congress in Bordeaux organized by the section of the European Association of Urology specializing in robotics, two doctors operated, from Gironde, on patients who were in China.
The first operation was carried out on September 11: a 37-year-old patient located in Beijing had a 3.5 centimeter tumor removed from his kidney by Professor Alberto Breda, a Spanish surgeon. This operated via a robot from Bordeaux, in a suit and tie. A week after the operation, the patient was recovering at home without complications, according to a press release of the Fundació Puigvert, the Barcelona health center where Professor Breda works.
Then, a 51-year-old man suffering from prostate cancer and also located in Beijing was operated on by Doctor Richard Gaston, a urologist in Bordeaux, using a robot in his office. The operation lasted 1 hour 10 minutes and a few days later, the patient was “progressing well”, according to Madrid Urology Center where the doctor also works.
How is this feat possible? “The movements of the surgeon’s hand are reproduced by instruments that are inside a patient who, in this case, was in Beijing. Between the movements of the surgeon and the movements of the instrument inside the patient, there is simply a delay of 130 milliseconds, which is practically imperceptible to the naked eye”, explains Richard Gaston to BFMTV.
Several benefits
The Chinese patient was thus able to benefit from the expertise of the Bordeaux doctor: “it was a banal gesture in quotes, but I was really able to carry out a sophisticated intervention to allow the patient not to lose his urine, to preserve his sexuality and above all to be cured”, underlines the urologist.
If this technique has advantages for patients, it also has virtues for professionals. “It is the possibility for trained surgeons to come to the aid of a surgeon who has less experience in any part of the world,” judges Richard Gaston. “Second interest: it’s learning. When a surgeon is carrying out an intervention, at one point, an expert surgeon can take control, help him through the difficult passage of the intervention”, he continues. .
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“Telesurgery has the potential to equalize geographic disparities in health care”, in particular by allowing low-income countries to invest and train surgeons remotely, declared Professor Patel, cited in a press release of Congress.
Other specialties are developing this technique
This intervention opens up perspectives for other specialties: “urology was a specialty which very quickly developed robotics, but at present, thoracic surgery, digestive surgery, gynecological surgery are booming and robotics is replacing the traditional path that we have all known,” says Dr. Gaston.
In the coming months, the first world congress of telesurgery must be organized. The location is not yet known: “either in the United States or in Strasbourg,” predicts Dr. Gaston, recalling that the Alsatian city hosted the first telesurgery. In 2001, Professor Jacques Marescaux ordered from New York an ablation of the gallbladder on a 68-year-old patient in Strasbourg.
Margaux de Frouville with Sophie Cazaux
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