Surgeon Operates Across 870 Kilometers Using Remote Robotic System
A surgeon in Seoul successfully operated on a pig located roughly 870 kilometers away in Shanghai, China, using a commercial surgical robot, chosun.com reported. The procedure marks the first time a South Korean medical team has executed a cross-border remote surgery using standard robotic equipment.
Operating a console in Seoul, Kang manipulated the Toumai surgical robot—developed by Chinese firm MicroPort MedBot—to excise and suture a portion of a pig's bladder in real time.
How the Cross-Border Robotic Procedure Works
Remote surgery allows a clinician to manipulate surgical instruments via a telecommunications network while sitting far away from the patient. This technology enables specialists to treat patients in medically underserved regions without traveling physically. It also offers potential applications in disaster zones and maritime environments where medical staff face severe access barriers.
While the technology is not entirely new—surgeons in New York removed a patient’s gallbladder in Strasbourg, France, across the Atlantic Ocean in 2001—advances in network speeds and robotic precision continue to expand the scope of long-distance operations. However, the latest experiment remains limited to an animal subject. Transitioning the technology to human clinical practice requires rigorous safety testing against network latency or connection drops, alongside regulatory frameworks to handle cross-border medical liability and patient data protection.
This demonstration confirms how remote surgery can be implemented in actual surgical environments across the physical distance between South Korea and China,
Kang stated, noting that broad clinical adoption requires thorough validation of patient safety and institutional foundations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What specific surgical robot was used in the cross-border test?
The procedure utilized the Toumai
surgical robot, a system developed by the Chinese medical device company MicroPort MedBot.
When did the Korean Urological Association host the academic meeting where this test occurred?
The demonstration took place on October 16 during the 78th Annual Meeting of the Korean Urological Association.