A Chinese surgical team had completed a robotic prostate surgery from Rome, Italy, on a patient located in Beijing, China. The operation was led by Professor Zhang Xu, a well-known urologist and head of the Urology Department at the Third Medical Center of the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital.
The surgery is being called a historical achievement in the medical world. Using a special robotic system, Professor Zhang controlled robotic arms in real-time while sitting at a console in Rome. The robotic arms, which were set up in an operating room in Beijing, followed his precise movements as he removed a lesion from a prostate cancer patient.
Even though Beijing is more than 8,000 kilometers away from Rome which takes over 11 hours by plane the surgery was performed smoothly thanks to high-speed 5G and fiber-optic networks. These advanced technologies made sure that there was almost no delay between Zhang’s commands and the robot’s actions.
“The biggest problem with remote surgery is communication whether there is any delay,” Professor Zhang said. “During today’s surgery, there was almost no delay, and it was almost the same as an on-site surgery.”
This breakthrough shows that it’s now possible for doctors to perform complex surgeries without needing to be in the same room, or even on the same continent, as their patients. It opens the door to helping people in faraway or hard-to-reach places who may not have access to top-level medical care.
The technology used for the surgery was the da Vinci robotic system, which is known for its ability to give surgeons a 3D view of the operation and a sense of touch through haptic feedback.
The da Vinci system was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000 as mentioned in News Medical. Over the years, it has been improved to become one of the most trusted tools in robotic surgery.
In this surgery, the delay between the surgeon’s movements and the robot’s response was just 135 milliseconds much lower than the 200 milliseconds that many medical studies say is the safe limit. That small delay made it feel like the surgeon was actually in the operating room in Beijing.
While Professor Zhang worked from Rome, a team of doctors and nurses in Beijing were on standby to help or take over if there were any technical issues. But the operation went smoothly, and the support team didn’t need to step in.
The event was broadcast live at a medical conference in Rome called “Challenges in Laparoscopy, Robotics, and AI.” Doctors and experts from around the world watched in amazement.
“The fact that he was able to do it in Rome makes us very, very happy,” said Vito Pansadoro, the chairman of the conference. “It was a historical moment.”
The surgery was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the PLA’s Third Medical Center. After this success, the team says they plan to use this technology to help the military in war zones or areas hit by natural disasters.
In such places, it’s often hard or impossible to send doctors quickly. But now, using this robotic system, doctors can operate on patients from thousands of kilometers away.
The idea of robotic surgery is not new. The first robots for surgery were built in the 1970s, and the first remote robotic surgery was done in 2001. But doing such a surgery across continents, with such a small delay and high accuracy, is something that has never been done before.
The da Vinci robotic system includes several arms that hold tools and an endoscope, which is a camera that lets the surgeon see inside the body. The system also uses sensors to give the surgeon a sense of touch. These features allow doctors to perform delicate and complex procedures with more accuracy and control than traditional methods.
Thanks to major investments — over 5 billion dollars per year from the private sector the technology continues to improve. Now, this surgery shows that we are entering a new age of medicine, where the best doctors can help patients anywhere in the world, no matter how far apart they are.
“This new system removes geographic limits in surgery,” Professor Zhang said. “Even if we cannot be physically present, the robot can now act on our instructions with extreme precision.”
