First transatlantic robotic thrombectomy performed

Editor's Note

Doctors from Scotland and the US recently completed what is thought to be a world-first stroke procedure using a remote surgical robot on a human cadaver. A professor testing the remote robotic technology at a hospital in Dundee, Scotland and a neurosurgeon in Florida conducted the thrombectomy on the cadaver located at a separate university facility in Dundee, as reported by the BBC on November 10.

At the University of Dundee in Scotland, the global training center of the World Federation for Interventional Stroke Treatment offers the opportunity to operate on cadavers with liquid that mimics human blood vessel circulation.

This research activity was designed to test if robotic surgical technology could be applied remotely, which could have the potential to provide timely access to stroke care for people living in remote and rural areas without immediate access to specialist treatment. This test procedure marks the first time that a complete mechanical thrombectomy procedure could be used on a real human body and demonstrates that all steps of the procedure are possible, as noted by a professor leading the research and quoted in the news report.