Briton with cancer operated on by doctor located 1,500 miles away using four-armed robot fitted with 3D camera
The patient was in Gibraltar. The surgeon was in London. The outcome was a remarkable triumph for remote robotic surgery that saved the life of a 62-year-old football fan with prostate cancer.
Inside the operating theatre at St Bernard’s, the only hospital in the British overseas territory, a hi-tech robot with four arms, and fitted with a 3D camera, removed the prostate of Briton Paul Buxton, who moved to Gibraltar 40 years ago.
Performing the procedure 1,500 miles away, from London’s Harley Street district, was Prof Prokar Dasgupta, a professor of urology who heads The London Clinic’s robotic centre of excellence.
With the help of technology services provider Presidio, Dasgupta used a console in London to guide the Toumai Robotic System, made by Microport, through an intricate sequence of steps to successfully give Buxton a prostatectomy, a surgical removal of the prostate.
