Editorial | Medical procedure has far-reaching results
Collaboration between a Hong Kong university and Swiss institute, 9,300km apart, sees a remote endoscopy successfully carried out on live pig
Hong Kong’s universities have a well-earned reputation for being at the forefront of research and innovation in the field of medicine. Even by those standards, a recent feat involving a remote endoscopy carried out over a distance of 9,300km as part of a collaboration between Chinese University (CUHK) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich is extraordinary.
Using a game controller, researchers at a robotics centre in Switzerland successfully steered an endoscope through a living pig halfway around the world at CUHK’s centre in Hong Kong Science Park and performed a biopsy on the wall of its stomach. The telesurgery procedure was hailed as the first remotely controlled endoscopy on a living pig involving a magnetic navigation system.
The breakthrough has the potential to bring such procedures to remote locations in developing countries that are in short supply of the medical expertise available in Hong Kong or other advanced economies. Human trials were expected to be carried out in two years, said Professor Bradley Nelson, head of the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at the Zurich facility.
The remarkable feat dovetails with the city’s ambitions of becoming a regional hub for innovation and technology. The government-owned Hong Kong Investment Corporation has earmarked HK$62 billion in funding to attract businesses to set up shop. The biotechnology sector is among several industries the government has pledged to develop.
Professor Philip Chiu Wai-yan, dean of CUHK’s medical school, said a new design allowed for a thinner endoscope that offered more flexibility and navigability, and a joystick meant an expert was not required. The use of magnetic fields was a breakthrough that allowed for more accurate control without a doctor’s intervention, Chiu said.
The marvel of performing a successful medical procedure while thousands of kilometres away from the patient is a sign of just how far technology has advanced. While much work has yet to be done and human trials are still pending, the potential for using remote technology to bring advanced medicine to poorer regions around the world is an important and noble pursuit that can be of great benefit.