Florida surgeon removes patient’s prostate from 35 miles away — The Guardian
In Florida, surgeon Vipul Patel remotely performed a robotic prostate removal surgery on a 66-year-old patient with cancer. The patient, named Mark, was at an AdventHealth medical facility in Minneola, while the doctor controlled the robotic instruments from another facility in the network — in Celebration, about 35 miles away. The Guardian reports.
Experimental study
Patel is the founder and medical director of the Global Robotics Institute at AdventHealth Celebration in suburban Orlando. The operation was part of a clinical study of a robotic telesurgery system. Surgeon Marcio Moschovas, a co-leader of the study, provided direct on-site support to the patient during the procedure.
According to AdventHealth, Mark was recovering well after the procedure. The medical facility also said there had been no previous reports of telerobotic operations between two locations in the United States.
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The study is being conducted under a US Food and Drug Administration investigational device exemption. Such authorization allows the system to be studied, but does not mean that the FDA has approved or cleared it for use. AdventHealth cautioned that this operation alone does not establish the technology’s overall clinical effectiveness.
Risks of remote operations
Before the operation in Florida, ten experimental telesurgical procedures between Orlando and Luanda, Angola, were performed as part of this study. Patel said the research is intended to assess whether telesurgery could in the future reduce geographic barriers to access to specialized treatment.
At the same time, researchers continue to assess the safety, reliability and cybersecurity of such systems. Robotic prostate removal is associated with risks of bleeding, infection, urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction and a possible need to switch to open surgery. The remote format also creates risks of equipment or connection failures and cyberthreats, so a team capable of intervening if necessary must be present beside the patient.
