In a landmark achievement, doctors at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona have performed the world’s first fully robotic lung transplant. Using a state-of-the-art surgical robot named ‘Da Vinci’, the team conducted the operation on a 65-year-old man named Xavier who was suffering from pulmonary fibrosis.
Traditional lung transplant surgeries require a large incision in the chest, multiple broken ribs, and a lengthy recovery period. However, with the help of the four-armed Da Vinci robot, the surgeons were able to access the patient’s lung by making a much smaller incision of only 8 cm in width. The deflated new lung was then inserted through the incision, which did not require any ribs to be broken. The robot’s arms and 3D cameras were inserted through smaller cuts in the side of the ribs, giving the surgeons a 360-degree view of the inside of the lung.
The Da Vinci robot was developed by Intuitive Surgical in 2000 and is now used globally to treat hundreds of thousands of patients each year. During the surgery, the robot translates the surgeon’s hand movements in real-time, allowing for more precise and controlled movements.
Although the Da Vinci robot has been used once before during a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, the lung was still inserted in the traditional way. This innovative use of the technology by the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital’s surgical team, which requires fewer incisions, is less painful for the patient, and reduces the risk of post-op infection as the wound can be easily closed.
Dr. Albert Jauregui, head of the Thoracic Surgery and Lung Transplants Department at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, believes that this new technique will significantly improve patients’ quality of life and reduce the post-surgery period and pain.
Xavier, the patient who underwent the surgery, had no pain after the operation and only required paracetamol for pain relief, unlike traditional lung transplant patients who require stronger opioid painkillers.
The team plans to refine the procedure further and aims to perform the first double-lung transplant using this technique in a few months. The hospital plans to offer this new technique to other patients on the waiting list for lung transplant surgery.
Dr. Jauregui hopes that this technique will become the global standard for lung transplantations. He believes that this groundbreaking procedure should be expanded to other hospitals globally to help more people.
