Dr Vipul Patel, founder and medical director of the Global Robotics Institute at AdventHealth Celebration in suburban Orlando, operated remotely from an AdventHealth facility in Celebration while the patient, identified as Mark, was at an AdventHealth facility in Minneola, Florida. Study co-principal investigator and surgeon Marcio Moschovas provided onsite support during the procedure, AdventHealth said.
“For generations, access to highly specialized care has often depended on where a patient lives,” Patel said in a statement. “This study allows us to evaluate whether telesurgery could one day help reduce geographic barriers to specialized treatment.”
The operation was performed after 10 investigational telesurgeries between Orlando, Florida, and Luanda, Angola, and marks the study’s expansion into US hospitals. AdventHealth cautioned that the surgery does not establish the technology’s general clinical performance, noting that no previous reports had documented a telesurgery procedure between two US locations.
Robotic prostatectomy carries risks including bleeding, infection, incontinence and erectile dysfunction, as well as the possibility of switching to open surgery. Telesurgery adds risks such as equipment or connection failures and cybersecurity threats, making it essential to have an on-site team available to take over if needed.
The Florida procedure follows a similar headline-making operation earlier this year, when a surgeon in London used a four-armed robot with a 3D camera to remove a man’s prostate in Gibraltar, about 1,500 miles away. That surgery was successful, with a lag of 0.06 seconds between the surgeon’s movements and the robot’s response.