The operation involved minimally invasive surgery: The 45-minute procedure consisted of a cholecystectomy on a 68-year-old female patient in surgical ward A in Strasbourg Civil Hospital, in Eastern France.
The link between the robotic system and the surgeon was provided by a high-speed fiberoptic service deployed thanks to the combined efforts of several France Telecom group entities.
Commenting on the operation, Professor Marescaux said: I believe that this demonstration of the feasibility of a completely safe remotely performed surgical procedure—and notably the first trans-Atlantic operation—ushers in the third revolution we've seen in the field of surgery in the past ten years.
This is what we have just demonstrated thanks to the combined technical prowess of Computer Motion, which created the digital robot required, and France Telecom, which was able to deploy a broadband transmission service with optimized compression, thus limiting the time delay between the command of the action and its return on the monitor to a level that is virtually imperceptible to the human eye.
Significant challenges: technical, operational, business, personnel, regulatory, and more were met along the way, which at a later date will be published either here or under a separate page that will shed light for future teams innovating in fields of technology in general and surgery in particular.