Hong Kong’s Chinese University successfully completes clinical trials of ‘single-port’ robotic arm for surgery – and patients find system a cut above as well
- Single arm carrying just three instruments and a high-definition 3D camera enters body through one site, requiring much smaller incision
- University’s one-year feasibility and safety trial involved 63 patients undergoing head and neck, urology or colorectal surgery
By the time she was 76, Cheng Choi-yuk had had enough of hospital visits.
She was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer in 2005. Then she suffered a stroke. In July 2017, a malignant tumour was found under her tongue as a result of the radiotherapy treatment for her previous cancer.
Once more Cheng was forced to go under the knife.
“I thought to myself at the time: I was nearly 80, had undergone so many surgeries already, and suffered from cancer and a stroke. I was really on the fence on this one,” she said.
That was when Cheng, now 78, was told she had a chance to be one of the few patients in the world to undergo minimally invasive surgery with a new “single-port” robotic system as part of clinical trials at Chinese University’s faculty of medicine.