A surgeon working in London has performed the U.K.’s first long-distance robotic surgery on a patient located 1,500 miles away in Gibraltar. The introduction of long-distance robotic operations is hoped to absolve future patients of the burden of “vast expense and inconvenience” as well as generally being capable of helping a wider array of people in more isolated locations.
The leading surgeon performing the robotic operation, Professor Prokar Dasgupta of King’s College in London, stated that using the robot’s functions felt “almost as if I was there,” an incredible feat for long-distance robotic surgery up until this point. The surgery was based in The London Clinic using a medical robot equipped with four different arms and a 3D HD camera. Most notably, all the controls utilized by Dasgupta had a delay of no greater than 60 milliseconds or 0.06 seconds, as visible to him through the camera. This great feat was achieved through the use of fiber-optic cables, which transmit data at incredibly fast rates through light pulses, connecting the console in the U.K. to the robot in Gibraltar.
Commenting on the technology, Dasgupta said, “This gives us the opportunity to treat patients in remote areas and smaller communities by literally being able to take the best surgeon anywhere.”
Going forward from this one test case for this surgery, Dasgupta is going to perform the operation once again on March 14, which is going to be live streamed to over 20,000 urologists, doctors treating urinary tract issues, at the EAU (European Association of Urology) congress.
Paul Buxton, age 62, was the patient in this operation, and he described his experience very positively, saying that he was “really well looked after” and was “feeling fantastic” following his operation on his newly formed prostate cancer. Without the use of this technology, Buxton would have had to fly to London, something that he, running a transport company, didn’t have time for.
“I would have had to go on the NHS waiting list, get the procedure done and I would have probably been in London for three weeks,” Buxton said. The possibility of long-distance surgery gives people like Buxton an opportunity to treat their medical issues while not being forced to travel far from where they live, thereby increasing access to medical facilities in communities where the needed operations are not present. The NHS, or the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS), has stated that by the year 2035, they want at least 500,000 long-distance robotics surgeries to have been performed, emphasizing the NHS’s priority towards this new innovative technology.
In the future, the U.K. intends to extend their reach to every overseas British territory and also open up the robot’s capabilities to handling more than just urologic surgeries.
For instance, just recently, the first robotic hysterectomies were completed at Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital and once again, the procedure went incredibly well in the patient’s perception.
One of the gynecologic oncology consultants who performed the surgery, Rema Iyer, believes that “The benefits are wide-ranging, from faster recovery and lower risk of infection to more precision and control.”
Once more and more operations start becoming long-range capable, the medical industry will have fixed one of its major problems of not being able to reach patients in isolated areas, effectively doubling and potentially tripling the range of healthcare that could be previously administered.
