In what can be described as a first, a surgical robot at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) in the UK has saved the life of a patient by successfully removing throat cancer.
“Having a second chance to see my grandchildren, my children and my wife meant a lot to me,” says 61-year-old Martin Nugent. “The GRH team saved my life and I will be forever grateful to them for doing so.”
The GRH team, composed of Simon Higgs e Steve Hornby has "hired" Versius, a surgical robot developed by a medical company, CMR Surgical. Their hospital was the first to start a robotic gastrointestinal surgery program.
6cm, a waist
Thanks to versius and in the opinion of English gastrointestinal surgeons, the esophagectomy surgery was a success with the removal of a 6cm mass.
Previously, operations on the esophagus, the muscular tube that transports food from the mouth to the stomach, were performed "open". The use of the Versius surgical robot allowed a minimal access surgical approach.
“It's fantastic to see Versius in action for complex oncology procedures like this,” says Ana Raduc, general manager of CMR Surgical. It's good to get excited: minimal access surgery improves results, reduces post-operative pain and creates much smaller incisions. Essentially, it can lead to faster healing. Surgical robotics is a really promising field.
Versius, a surgical robot that can come in handy for everything: from easy to complicated things.
“It is important for us to use Versius in the hospital, so that patients undergoing routine surgeries such as cholecystectomy and more complex procedures can benefit from the precision and accuracy of robotic surgery,” said Higgs, one of the surgeons.
By treating more and more patients with minimal access procedures, the surgical robot will make the work of doctors less complicated, ultimately transforming this and many other branches of surgery.
For now it has transformed the life of Simon Nugent, "patient 1", an English grandfather who last year, he says, was suffering to the point of losing significant weight and not being able to eat anything even at Christmas. “I think we'll do it again this year,” Nugent says, “and I'm really happy that I've been given the opportunity to enjoy another Christmas.”
This and others, grandfather Simon.
