For the first time, a surgical robot has removed a tumor …

A medical exploit took place this Tuesday in the north Italy. For the first time in the world, doctors at the Molinette Hospital in Turin have successfully removed a malignant kidney tumor using a surgical robot from an awake patient.

The robot says Da Vinci Xi, had previously been used in operations under total anesthesia, but not in people awake due to the risk of movement, explained Paolo Gontero, director of the urology department of the hospital and who carried out this pioneering intervention.

The patient is a 62-year-old woman who had “traveled the country and the most prestigious hospitals” in search of a solution for a “deep” malignant tumor of more than 5 centimeters in the kidney. The problem is that could not have an operation under total anesthesia with only one lung due to a previous cancer, so the chance that he would not wake up from the sedation was very high.

“I told the patient that her case was extremely complex because robotic surgery, the only technology that would allow us to remove a tumor of these dimensions minimally invasively and saving the kidney, had never been used. in an awake patient and, therefore, I could not assure him of the viability of the intervention, ”said the specialist.

The use of the Da Vinci Xi robot was “mandatory”According to the urologist, who did not think it was safe to use the “traditional outdoor” technique or laparoscopic surgery – with a small camera – “because of the risk of the tumor spreading, in the case of ‘a mass of liquid content in a patient who was at risk of moving. “

How was the operation

The operation led by Gontero lasted two hours, required the four operating arms of the robot and also used “innovative technologies for three-dimensional reconstruction”, explained the City of Health of Turin, a health complex where the Molinette hospital.

The patient, awake at all times, was able to continue the procedure and, excited, thanked the medical staff at his conclusion. “Thank you for giving me a second life,” he said, according to Gontero.