2023-04-18 13:11:43
Spanish surgeons have achieved the feat of performing the first almost entirely robotic lung transplant, guided by a console, without opening the patient’s chest.
A world first. The Department of Thoracic Surgery and Lung Transplantation at Barcelona University Hospital has managed to perform the first lung transplant using a robot and without opening the patient’s chest.
While the usual operation involves opening the patient’s thorax and spreading his chest in order to perform the transplant, the use of the robot controlled remotely by a console makes it possible to perform the operation via an incision of 8 centimeters on the sternum. The diseased lung is extracted through this opening and the new lung is inserted through the same route. A much less invasive technique, which allows a faster recovery of the patient.
400 robots en France
In detail, the robot which is controlled from a console by a surgeon has four arms. One of the arms carries an endoscope camera, two hold the tools and the last one operates. This technology resulting from the work of NASA and Darpa (the R&D agency of the American army) was developed with the Da Vinci robot from the American company Intuitive Surgical.
There are 4,500 models of this robot in the world, including more than 400 in France. They are used in many surgical specialties.
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