Landmark achievement in Robotic Surgery workshop

KARACHI: A successful robotic surgical procedure was performed for the first time in Pakistan on a female patient hailing from Baluchistan carried out with the removing of her uterus on the concluding day of international multi-disciplinary "robotic surgery" workshop here on Saturday.

She had intractable bleeding acquiring multiple transfusion. The procedure called "hysterectomy in medical parlance was performed at, a 55-year-old lady patient.

The patient will be discharged after 24 hours. The benefit of this new type of surgery Robotic surgeons team comprising Prof. Shamim Khan of King's College London and Dr. Kankipati Shanti Raju from Guys and St Thomas Hospitals London performed the procedure along with a team of highly trained support staff.

The robotic technique used during surgery was first of its kind in the country.

Medical experts have described the successful procedure as a major breakthrough in the field of robotic surgery in Pakistan particularly in the field of gynecology.

They said this success will open new vistas of robotic surgery in the country.

SIUT had arranged here three-day international workshop discussing the impact and benefit of robotic surgery in the field of urology, general surgery and gynecology.

The three fields were exclusively discussed during the workshop in which live surgery was also conducted for three days and live telecast from OT Complex, Civil Hospital Karachi.

The workshop was participated by a team of visiting surgeons from Britain along with surgeons from SIUT and Civil Hospital Karachi.

Surgeons during the workshop, also discussed the initial high cost this state of art surgery but were of the opinion that keeping in view parameters of less pain, less loss of blood and faster recovery as compared to traditional surgery which became cost effective in longer run underscores the need of greater use of robotic surgery in the highly selected centres in Pakistan shared amongst several specialties.