The rise of robotic surgery

In September 2001, a 68-year-old woman checked into Strasbourg Civil Hospital in France for a cholecystectomy, a routine removal of the gall bladder. Her surgeon, Jacques Marescaux, was one of the best.

The successful operation took only 45 minutes but was hailed as one of the most spectacular operations in modern surgery because Marescaux controlled the robots that removed her gall bladder from New York City.

Robots have a history of assisting especially tricky surgeries. As early as 1985, a robot was used to place a needle during a brain biopsy. Today, most robotic surgery is minimal access surgery (MAS) or surgery which requires only a very small incision (such as keyhole surgery).

Hong Kong is at the forefront of robotic surgery in Asia. The Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital purchased Asia's first Robotic Interactive Orthopaedic (Rio) System, a revolutionary system used mainly for partial knee replacement.

Five hospitals in the city, one private and four public, have the da Vinci Surgical System - the most commonly used robot for MAS - according to Dr Law Wai-lun, chief of the division of colorectal surgery and director of the surgical skills centre at Queen Mary Hospital. The first da Vinci system was installed at Prince of Wales Hospital in November 2005. Queen Mary got one in 2007, and Law says it has performed more than 680 procedures. In the past year alone, 160 procedures were done.

In Hong Kong, robots are most commonly used to treat prostate, bladder, kidney, cervical, rectal and stomach cancers, and pelviureteric obstruction, says Dr Simon Hou, chief of the division of urology at Prince of Wales. But other surgeries, such as liver resections and oesophagectomies, are also more commonly performed here than elsewhere, says Dr Philip Chiu Wai-yan, director of Chinese University's Jockey Club minimally invasive surgical skills centre.