Beilinson Hospital performs Israel's first robotic lung transplant with a da Vinci robot
Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, part of Israel's Clalit health group, has performed the country's first lung transplant using a surgical robot, without fully opening the patient's chest, Israeli outlet Arutz Sheva (INN) reported on Monday, Nov. 2, citing the hospital. i24NEWS carried the same account from the hospital.
The operation took place in October with a da Vinci system. Surgeons worked through small incisions instead of sawing through the chest and spreading the ribs. The hospital says it joins about 20 similar robotic lung transplants worldwide; the first was done in Spain about three years ago, at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in April 2023.
Dr. Yuri Peysakhovich, head of thoracic surgery at Beilinson, led the team. Doctors say the patient recovered faster than expected and needed almost no pain medication beyond paracetamol, which shortened his stay in intensive care and in the hospital. The reports don't identify the patient.
Why skipping the open chest matters
After a standard lung transplant, pain makes it hard to breathe deeply and cough, which raises the risk of pneumonia and infection, INN reports. Peysakhovich told INN he wants robotic, closed-chest surgery to be the standard for lung transplants within five years. So far this is one patient's result: the hospital hasn't released comparative outcome data, as i24NEWS notes.
More on surgical robots.
Sources
- Arutz Sheva / INN (Nov. 2): First in Israel, lung transplant using a robot (Hebrew; photos: Beilinson spokesperson's office)
- i24NEWS (Nov. 2): Beilinson performs ground breaking robotic lung transplant in bid to ease recovery
- Vall d'Hebron University Hospital (Apr. 17, 2023): first fully robotic lung transplant
New to robots? Read our guide: How robots work: a beginner's guide.
Summarized by Servospace from the sources above, drafted with AI help and checked against those sources before publishing. Claims are the companies' or outlets' unless we say otherwise. How we work.