London surgeons on Wednesday became the first in the UK to livestream surgery using a robot to doctors across the country.
Medics from Guy’s and St Thomas’ broadcast the live operation to the Future Surgery conference, which began on Wednesday morning at the ExCeL centre in Newham. They were assisted by the Hugo robot.
The patient, a 73-year-old retired GP, had his prostate removed after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The surgery was live streamed via Proximie – a technology platform that allows clinicians to virtually “scrub in” to any operating room from anywhere in the world.
Dr Ben Challacombe, clinical lead for robotic surgery at Guy’s and St Thomas’, who is leading the operation, told the Standard it was a “huge honour for our surgical team to be invited to share our expertise with colleagues from across the country”.
“Robotic surgery has several benefits for patients over both standard keyhole and open surgery, including less time in hospital, faster recovery times and less pain. We can make smaller incisions, avoiding larger cuts and more scarring.
“When we use the robots, we effectively have our hands inside the patient without open surgery.”
During a robotic procedure, surgeons control the robot’s "arms" from a console where they have a 3D HD view while they operate. The hi-tech surgical instruments and a state-of-the-art camera are inserted through tiny incisions in the body.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ have the largest robotic surgery programme in the UK, with seven robots operating across six specialties.
Doctors from the Trust also broadcast two other operations being performed with the da Vinci robot, which was first installed at the Trust in 2004.
Asit Arora, ENT robotic head and neck consultant surgeon, used da Vinci to operate through a patient’s mouth. This less invasive approach, known as transoral robotic surgery (TORS), is used to remove a lump of suspicious tissue from a patient’s throat.
Katie Adams, a colorectal surgeon specialising in inflammatory bowel disease, presented an “as live” case to demonstrate the training required to perform robotic colorectal surgery.
In September, Guy’s and St Thomas became the first hospital in the UK to perform 10,000 operations using the da Vinci robot.
Last year, surgeons at the trust used the robot to perform a week’s worth of operations in a single day.
