Sci-fi surgery as doctor in UK directs robot to remove a prostate in Gibraltar | UK news
The patient was in Gibraltar. The surgeon was in London. The result was a remarkable triumph for remote robotic surgery that saved the life of a 62-year-old football fan diagnosed with prostate cancer.
In the operating room of St. Bernard’s, the only hospital in the British Overseas Territory, a high-tech four-armed robot equipped with a 3D camera removed the prostate of Briton Paul Buxton, who settled in Gibraltar 40 years ago.
Professor Prokar Dasgupta, a professor of urology who heads the London Clinic’s robotics center of excellence, carried out the procedure 1,500 miles away in the Harley Street area of London.
With the help of technology services provider Presidio, Dasgupta used a console in London to guide the Toumai robotic system, made by Microport, through a complex sequence of steps to successfully give Buxton a prostatectomy, a surgical removal of the prostate.
The procedure went as planned with a delay of just 0.06 seconds between the surgeon in London and the robot in Gibraltar. After the unique experience, Buxton said he felt “fantastic” within a few days.
“A lot of people said to me, ‘You’re not going to do it, are you?’” Buxton said. “I thought: I’m giving something back here.
“I love football. We went from the Championship to the Champions League as far as surgeons are concerned.”
Buxton, from Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, said it was a “no-brainer” to get involved, telling the Press Association he was happy to be the “guinea pig”.
After his cancer diagnosis, Buxton expected to put himself on the NHS waiting list and travel to England due to the complex nature of the operation.
But then he had the opportunity to have remote surgery and jumped at the chance.
“If I hadn’t had the telesurgery in Gibraltar, I would have had to fly to London, I would have had to get on the NHS waiting list, have the procedure and I probably would have been in London for three weeks. So I thought, ‘It’s a no-brainer’,” Buxton said.
“And it’s pioneering for Gibraltar, because you don’t have to leave Gibraltar. Normally for any major surgery, apart from minor things, maybe hernias and things like that, you end up having to go to London or Madrid.”
He added: “It has been a privilege to be part of medical history. »
Dasgupta said the “historic” operation, which took place earlier this year, “went extremely well”.
“We operated on an NHS patient in Gibraltar from the London clinic 1,400 miles away, using a robot equipped with a four-armed 3D HD camera.
“The robot is controlled entirely from a console, which looks like a computer console, using high-speed lines with a delay of, would you believe it, just 0.06 seconds, or 60 milliseconds.”
The London console was connected to the Gibraltar robot via fiber optic, with a backup 5G connection. A team on the ground in Saint-Bernard was ready to take over as a precaution in the event of a connection cut.
Remote surgery is rapidly advancing around the world, with recent advances enabling more real-time, remote procedures.
Patients in remote areas don’t always have access to the best health care, Dasgupta said, and remote surgery means they can avoid “huge expense and inconvenience” when traveling for treatment.
He added: “I think it’s very, very exciting, the humanitarian benefit is going to be significant. »
Dasgupta is scheduled to repeat the procedure remotely with another patient on March 14, this time in front of 20,000 surgeons watching via livestream of the European Association of Urology Congress.
