AdventHealth Doctor Removes Prostate in First US Telerobotic Surgery

A surgeon in Celebration, Florida, removed a cancer patient's prostate on Sunday while sitting 35 miles away at a different hospital, using a robotic system he controlled remotely, according to The Guardian. AdventHealth says it is the first telerobotic operation performed between two hospitals in the United States.

What happened in the operating room?

Dr. Vipul Patel, founder and medical director of the Global Robotics Institute at AdventHealth Celebration, performed the prostatectomy from his hospital near Orlando. The patient, identified only as Mark, a 66-year-old prostate cancer patient, was lying on an operating table at an AdventHealth facility in Minneola, about 35 miles away, the Guardian reported. Patel controlled a robotic surgical system remotely, directing the instruments inside Mark's body in real time.

Mark did not go through the procedure without a surgeon in the room. Dr. Marcio Moschovas, a co-principal investigator on the study, stayed at Mark's side in Minneola to provide onsite support throughout the operation, according to an AdventHealth news release cited by the Guardian.

Why does the distance matter?

The 35 miles between hospitals is the point of the study. Telerobotic surgery lets a specialist operate on a patient without either person traveling, which researchers hope could help people who live far from surgeons trained in complex procedures.

"For generations, access to highly specialized care has often depended on where a patient lives," Patel said in a statement reported by the Guardian. "This study allows us to evaluate whether telesurgery could one day help reduce geographic barriers to specialized treatment."

How is the patient doing now?

AdventHealth told ABC News that Mark was recovering well after the procedure, according to the Guardian's reporting. No further details on his recovery timeline or hospital discharge were available in the source material.

Is this FDA-approved surgery?

Not yet, and that distinction matters for anyone reading headlines about the operation. The surgery was performed under an investigational device exemption from the Food and Drug Administration, which permits researchers to study a device on human patients but does not mean the FDA has approved or cleared it for general use, the Guardian reported.

In plain terms: the robotic telesurgery system Patel used is still in the testing phase. Mark volunteered for the clinical research study knowing the technology is experimental.

Sunday's case was not the first time Patel's team tested long-distance robotic surgery. The Minneola-to-Celebration procedure came after the study ran 10 investigational telesurgeries between Orlando and Luanda, Angola, according to AdventHealth's news release. Sunday's operation marked the study's first expansion into hospital-to-hospital telesurgery inside the United States.

What happens next with telerobotic surgery?

The Guardian's report does not say how many more patients are enrolled in the study or when AdventHealth expects results. Patients, clinicians, and regulators watching this trial should expect answers to these questions as it continues:

• Whether the FDA moves toward approving or clearing the telesurgery system for routine use, based on outcomes from this and future cases.
• Whether AdventHealth or other hospital systems expand telerobotic trials to other U.S. locations beyond Orlando and Minneola.
• Whether the technology is eventually used for conditions besides prostate cancer.
• How recovery and complication rates for telerobotic patients compare with standard robotic-assisted surgery performed with the surgeon in the same room.

Key terms to know

Telerobotic surgery: An operation in which a surgeon controls a robotic surgical system from a different physical location than the patient, rather than standing beside the operating table.

Robotic prostatectomy: Surgical removal of the prostate gland using robotic-assisted instruments, a standard treatment option for prostate cancer that is normally performed with the surgeon in the same operating room.

Investigational device exemption (IDE): An FDA authorization that allows a medical device to be used on human patients for research purposes. An IDE lets a device be studied in clinical trials; it is not the same as full FDA approval or clearance for public use.

Clinical research study: A structured medical trial, often requiring patients to volunteer and give informed consent, used to test whether a new treatment or device is safe and effective before it can be approved for wider use.

For now, the takeaway for patients is narrow: telerobotic surgery between two U.S. hospitals has been demonstrated once, in a research setting, under federal oversight, with a second surgeon present for backup. It has not been cleared for routine hospital use, and the Guardian's report gives no timeline for when, or if, that could change.

Artiglio is A coming-soon iPhone chief of staff for briefings and drafts. Not on the App Store yet.