Bengaluru: Robot helps doctors in kidney transplant

Bengaluru: South India's first ever robotic-assisted surgery for a kidney transplant was recently conducted in a city hospital. "It is a fairly new concept and has earlier been performed at only Delhi and Ahmedabad. It cuts down complications that happen with the procedure and the hospital stay is also reduced drastically," said Dr Deepak Dubey, Consultant Urology and Renal Transplant, Manipal Hospitals here on Wednesday.

He told reporters that the patient, Sarojit Adak (35), was on dialysis for the past four years and his condition was deteriorating. He had lost weight and his health had deteriorated. Surojit told reporters, "I was suggested this surgery by the doctors and felt that since I was going to be the first one to be operated upon using this technique, I was a little anxious. However I was assured about the accuracy rate of this surgery and decided to go ahead with it." His mother-in-law was the donor. Explaining in detail about the surgery Dr Deepak said, "A small cut was made around the umbilicus and kidney was inserted into the recipient's body. The blood vessels of the kidney were sutured to the blood vessels of the recipient using the robot. Robotic instruments have 360-degree rotation compared to the human wrist, which has an only 270-degree rotation."