Robotic Surgery Performed Remotely on Patient 1,500 Miles Away (bbc.com) 30
"A surgeon in London says he has performed the UK's first long-distance robotic operation," reports the BBC, "on a patient located 1,500 miles (2,400km) away..."
Leading robotic urological surgeon Professor Prokar Dasgupta said it felt "almost as if I was there" as he carried out a prostate removal on [62-year-old] Paul Buxton... It is hoped that remote robotic surgery could spare future patients the "vast expense and inconvenience" of travelling for treatment, and help deliver better healthcare to people in more remote locations... Buxton had expected to be put on an NHS waiting list after receiving a shock prostate cancer diagnosis just after Christmas, but he "jumped at the chance" to be the first patient to undergo the treatment remotely as part of a trial. "A lot of people actually said to me: 'You're not going to do it, are you?'
"I thought, I'm giving something back here," he said...
The operation was performed from The London Clinic using a robot equipped with a 3D HD camera and four arms, all controlled through a console with a delay of only 0.06 seconds. The console in the UK was connected to the robot in Gibraltar via fibre-optic cables, with a backup 5G link. A team in Gibraltar remained on standby in case the connection failed, but it held throughout the procedure...
Dasgupta will perform the procedure again on 14 March, which will be live-streamed to 20,000 world-leading urological surgeons at the European Association of Urology congress. He added: "I think it is very, very exciting, the humanitarian benefit is going to be significant."
The U.K.'s National Health Service "is prioritising local robotic-assisted surgery," the article points out, "aiming for 500,000 robot-supported operations a year by 2035."
Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.
"I thought, I'm giving something back here," he said...
The operation was performed from The London Clinic using a robot equipped with a 3D HD camera and four arms, all controlled through a console with a delay of only 0.06 seconds. The console in the UK was connected to the robot in Gibraltar via fibre-optic cables, with a backup 5G link. A team in Gibraltar remained on standby in case the connection failed, but it held throughout the procedure...
Dasgupta will perform the procedure again on 14 March, which will be live-streamed to 20,000 world-leading urological surgeons at the European Association of Urology congress. He added: "I think it is very, very exciting, the humanitarian benefit is going to be significant."
The U.K.'s National Health Service "is prioritising local robotic-assisted surgery," the article points out, "aiming for 500,000 robot-supported operations a year by 2035."
Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.
Better have good Internet (Score:4, Funny)
404: Organ not found.
Re: (Score:2)
What if the 5G carrier also used the same fiber-optic link? Best have something even slightly out of band, like starlink, as well.
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Also, you probably want permission from every ISP you are using in the loop, since using their connection for "life critical" things may actually violate their terms of service, lol.
Cutting edge technology (Score:3)
A team in Gibraltar remained on standby in case the connection failed, but it held throughout the procedure...
If this was tried in the 1990s:
(Dial-up screech) Aww, who picked up the phone?!!
This is amazing. (Score:2)
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Lindbergh Operations... (Score:1)
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First sentence of the actual summary: "the UK's first long-distance robotic operation" - it's a kind of giveaway that this wasn't the first ever long-distance operation.
Riiigggghhhhtttt... (Score:1)
So the idea is that in places without doctors, they'll just install multi-million dollar doctor robots and make sure they have a good Internet/data link and reliable power, along with prep-nurses, anesthesia, and pre/post-op care?
There's a reason the patient was in India, and I don't think it was because they have a desperate lack of urologists in India, I think it has to do with regulations regarding testing on human subjects.
Re: Riiigggghhhhtttt... (Score:1)
Sorry, patient was not in India, somehow I got Bangalore in my head when I read the piece, the patient was in Gibraltar...
Re:Riiigggghhhhtttt... (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting it wrong this way kinda undercuts your conclusion, doesn’t it? Gibraltar has surgical facilities and teams, but not world-class urologists. Expertise remains the most expensive asset in medicine
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Expertise remains the most expensive asset in medicine
It's not even that. Some operations are rare and will only be performed on one in a hundred thousand people. In the UK, that means hundreds of operations on the current population so a surgeon in a top teaching hospital can get experience staying in place. In Gibraltar (population 39k) that means likely not even one operation will have been carried out before. This becomes massively more convenient.
The Gibraltar team will do some of the more common operations themselves and have experience in opening and cl
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I would say “both-and” rather than “not even”, but yes, volumes really matter. This was a key concept behind the reorg of stroke services in London (done by the incredible and formidable combo) of Ara Darzi, Ruth Carnall and Hannah Farrar, back in the day when we had half-decent investment in the NHS. It saved hundreds of lives a year.
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if volumes matter and gibralter doesn not have the volume to matter, how do you justify the multi million dollar robot? rather then flying the patient or doctor?
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Capex vs opex, amortisation over time (a second order but crucial benefit of choosing capex investment over opex spend), scaling, flexibility of deployment... lots of reasons. Hopefully you don't need me to spell each of those out and can think them through.
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riiiight, why spend 500 dollars on a plane ticket for the 1/year patient surgery when you could spend millions of dollars now and wait for it, the yearly maintenance is even more, yes lets do this thing. and will it even last the amortization period? who cares there will be a new robot for you to buy then.
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That's a very silly way of thinking. It's not like this robot will be used for only one operation, and the costs of that surgeon are a lot higher than just a plane ticket.
Seriously, why would you assume that the people who bought this thing are gibbering idiots incapable of running the numbers to ensure they get value for money? The people who will make the decisions will include the CFO, the CMO, the CMIO, senior surgeons, etc. They understand maths and finance and budgets and medicine and the cutting edge
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the op said not enough demand for a local doc and the procedure is rare even in larger population countries. the cost of the doctor is not less if performing live or remote. the patient travel cost is much less than buying the robot.
"gibbering idiots " =="CFO, the CMO, the CMIO, " no surgeons there so you need robot.
CFO and CMO get bought out regularly to make decisions favoring corpos
Re: Riiigggghhhhtttt... (Score:2)
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There's a reason the patient was in India
Gibraltar is a UK overseas territory on the Spanish peninsula. The regulations on testing in this case follow a mixture of UK and EU regulations (Gibraltar being a special case where regulations of both apply in some cases), i.e. it's some of the most stringent regulations you can find.
If you're going to criticise at least put a minimum amount of effort into understanding the basics you use to try and make your point.
But let's stick with your silly idea that this was in India:
and I don't think it was because they have a desperate lack of urologists in India
India has 1 urologist per 567,0
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This has been done in Canada several times, surgery has been carried out with a robot transported to remote mines by a surgeon in Winnipeg or Toronto. So far I think they've each been a custom device, but work is ongoing to create a standard instrument.
how wonderful (Score:2)
Now my luggage and my spleen will get lost.
London Clinic is not part of the NHS (Score:2)
Just in case anyone was wondering. The NHS may take this up one day — Ara Darzi pioneered many aspects of robot-assisted surgery in the NHS, after all, and Prof Dasgupta works within it as well as his private work — but this was done at a private clinic.
This will provide training data for AI (Score:2)
Spain has done 10 operations, 1800 miles away (Score:1)
"It is hoped" by... ? (Score:2)
It is hoped that remote robotic surgery could spare future patients the "vast expense and inconvenience" of travelling for treatment, and help deliver better healthcare to people in more remote locations.
Whoever out there is hoping the above, clearly hasn't paid attention to how products like this are brought to market.
To be accurate, the sentence should read:
It is hoped - by hospital corporations, med tech manufacturers, insurers, and all the corporations who supply/service or invest in the business of medical care - that remote robotic surgery could spare future investors the vast expense and inconvenience of employing enough humans for each city/region to have a set of people and facilities to provide co