In a remarkable advancement for telesurgery, Professor Prokar Dasgupta successfully performed a robotic prostate removal surgery on Paul Buxton, a 62-year-old cancer patient, from a distance of 1,500 miles. The joint operation took place on 11 February. Dasgupta operated remotely from London as the procedure was conducted at St Bernard’s Hospital in Gibraltar. This groundbreaking approach is the first of its kind in the UK. It could fundamentally shift the ability of patients who reside in rural areas to access necessary medical care.
Here, Professor Dasgupta used the Toumai Robotic System to perform the surgery. From an ergonomic cockpit in the UK, he had piloted the robo-surgeon in Gibraltar remotely over fibre-optic cables and an auxiliary 5G network. Miraculously, their connection remained stable over the entire operation, enabling immediate reactions and exact actions to be taken with a high degree of control.
While the news is still fresh, we caught up with Professor Dasgupta to hear his thoughts on the technology’s potential. He noted that it stands to dramatically improve health for patients in neglected, less privileged regions, offering essential humanitarian advantages.
This innovative surgery was able to provide Buxton with immediate treatment. It removed the burden of long-distance travel and avoided the uncertainty of NHS waiting list delays. Per Buxton, being part of this history-making procedure was a “no-brainer.” At the time, he was extremely happy with the care that he received. Post-op, he reported feeling “amazing,” saying he had been “really well taken care of.”
The completion of this surgery is an exciting and encouraging milestone toward the eventual use of telesurgery in remote operations. In fact, on March 14, Professor Dasgupta will be doing a second such surgery. He intends to live-stream this breakthrough event to an expected audience of 20,000 top urological surgeons across the globe. A second test case, that of a 52-year-old patient in Gibraltar, is slated to be heard on March 4.
This development comes at an opportune time for Gibraltar. Residents can have a hard time accessing advanced medical service due to the lack facility locally. With only one hospital at their disposal, most of them are forced to seek specialized treatment abroad. Expansion of this revolutionary approach to robotic surgery would have an enormous impact on the quality of healthcare for residents. It provides immediate, life-saving medical treatments without the burden of long-distance travel.
A separate team based in Gibraltar stood by during the entire process, prepared to step in if any connection problems were experienced. Their level of preparation was key even though it didn’t end up being needed because the operation went off without a hitch.