A radical removal of the prostate will debut the new technology, which will also benefit patients with colon or liver cancer
The Reina Sofía Hospital is preparing to carry out, next Friday, the first surgery with the help of a Da Vinci robot that is performed in the regional public health. It is a technology that has long been claimed by professionals that will allow to operate “with much greater precision”, underlines the head of the Urology service, Pablo Guzmán, who will lead the intervention under the guidance of surgeons from the Vall D’Hebron in Barcelona.
Instead of his hands, the new robot will operate on the patient, directed by him through a console. The machine “allows movements that the human hand is not capable of, such as a 360-degree turn on its axis. This gives us wonderful precision, and we can go to fields where before we could not intervene, ”Guzmán details. In addition to this ability to move, there is a vision in three dimensions and the possibility of increasing the size of the image “up to ten times”.
The patient selected for this first intervention, who suffers from prostate cancer, will undergo a radical removal of this organ. The new technique will reduce the risk of erectile dysfunction, one of the most common complications of prostatectomy.
But this is just the beginning. Robotic surgery will be extended at the Reina Sofía to other specialties, and will also reach three other hospitals: La Arrixaca, Morales Meseguer and Santa Lucía.
The Murcian Health Service (SMS) has made a total of four Da Vinci robots for an amount of 10 million euros. It is not really a purchase, but a four-year lease, a period after which the acquisition will be decided, explains Pablo Guzmán, designated regional coordinator of the new Robotic Surgery Program.
La Arrixaca and Santa Lucía
At the moment, the first two teams have arrived in the Region. One has settled in the Reina Sofía and the other in La Arrixaca. In recent weeks, the training of professionals has been carried out, and the accreditation process is being completed. On Friday 8th the first robotic surgery will take place at the Reina Sofía, while the Da Vinci in La Arrixaca will also premiere in October. The third robot will arrive at Santa Lucía predictably “at the end of the month”, and the last one will be installed at Morales Meseguer next year, explains Pablo Guzmán.
Robotic surgery will be a before and after in many specialties. The Reina Sofía General Surgery service is preparing to start using the new Da Vinci this month. Specifically, on the 14th a hiatal hernia intervention will be carried out. “In principle, we have launched two lines of work with the Da Vinci: esophagogastric surgery and colon and rectum surgery,” explains Antonio Albarracín, the head of the service. The new robot “gives us a lot of ease of approach, impacts its 3D image precision,” he emphasizes.
In La Arrixaca they are also preparing to use the robot in different types of surgeries, including liver resections. In addition, the new technology will gradually be incorporated in the different hospitals into Gynecology, Thoracic Surgery (lung tumors) and Otorhino (tumors of the base of the tongue), among other specialties. The potential is huge.
Robotic surgery units will be set up in each of the four hospitals equipped with Da Vinci robots, which will be coordinated with each other. “The centers have been selected for being the ones with the most specialties, but patients from all over the Region will have access,” Guzmán clarifies. Once “cruising speed is reached”, the regional public health will have the capacity to carry out between 200 and 300 operations with Da Vinci robots per year.
A technology already present in most communities
The Region of Murcia will be one of the last communities to have robotic surgery. The Da Vinci began to arrive in Spain a couple of decades ago, mainly through private healthcare. The first public hospital to incorporate this technology was, in 2006, the Madrid Clinic, thanks to a donation from the Esther Koplowitz Foundation. Over time, however, public health systems have been acquiring equipment, to the point that Murcia was one of the few communities that lacked them, along with Aragón, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha. Now that deficit is ending. In Madrid there are three Da Vinci robots in public hospitals and 18 in private centers, although before the pandemic broke out, the acquisition of another six devices for the public network was approved. Galicia has just bought seven teams, while the Valencian Health Service has only one. In total, there are 82 Da Vinci in Spain, which have allowed more than 50,000 interventions to be carried out, explains Pablo Guzmán, regional coordinator of the new robotic surgery program.
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