Hong Kong conducts robotic telesurgery pilot with Switzerland

The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich have recently conducted what could be the world’s first remote tele-endoscopy.

In a pioneering research, they conducted a biopsy on the stomach wall of a live porcine model in an operating room in Hong Kong from a control room in Zurich, Switzerland over 9,3srcsrc kilometres (5,7srcsrc miles) away. 

It involved using a portable surgical system featuring a magnetic endoscope and a robotic platform. The live telesurgery was facilitated through the computer communications protocol, WebSocket.

The surgical system has been installed in the hybrid operation room at the Hong Kong government-funded Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Center in CUHK, a facility dedicated to evaluating new surgical robots and medical devices. ETH Zurich is one of the centre’s collaborators. 

A significant finding of this research was the endoscope achieving full retroflexion (or a full U-turn), which proved that “magnetic endoscopes can move as freely as standard device[s].”

WHY IT MATTERS

Dr Shannon Melissa Chan, an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery of CUHK Faculty of Medicine, highlighted the potential of conducting remote tele-endoscopy to provide critical care in remote areas. 

“A remote expert can even instruct trained nurses to perform the procedures. Millions of patients worldwide will be able to be diagnosed and treated for gastrointestinal cancer in a timely manner as endoscopic technology becomes more accessible,” she was quoted in a press statement as saying.

Dr Bradley Nelson, professor and head of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, also noted the potential application of remote telesurgery in such areas as the gastrointestinal tract and neurovascular system, as well as in foetal surgery.

The CUHK-ETH Zurich research team will now move to apply tele-endoscopy on a human stomach, though they have not said if it will be done in vivo or not. 

THE LARGER TREND

Remote telesurgery has come far from when the first recorded operation was done in 2src21 between France and the United States. 

Last year, a study between Japan and Singapore proved that the operation can be done over a distance of 3,1src7 miles using a dedicated international high-speed fibre optic network.