Professor Ho-Young Hwang Succeeds in Minimally Invasive Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery Using Da Vinci Robot
Professor Ho-Young Hwang Succeeds in Minimally Invasive Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery Using Da Vinci Robot
Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) succeeded in conducting its first minimally invasive coronary artery bypass surgery using Da Vinci Robot on 26 November. The medical team led by Professor Ho Young Hwang at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery performed the operation to a 53-year-old man with coronary artery disease. Without suffering from any aftereffects, the patient is now fully recovered from the operation.
Patients with coronary artery disease have stenotic or occluded coronary arteries which have problems in supplying sufficient blood flow to myocardium.
Coronary artery bypass surgery is a surgical procedure that opens up the patient’s sternum, which lies in the middle of the chest, takes arteries within the patient’s chest, arms, and saphenous veins from legs, and grafts them into the coronary arteries that have been narrowed down due to coronary atherosclerosis. It thereby makes a bypass (blood vessel) and improves the blood supply to the heart muscle.
Robotic surgery, however, is a remote operation that does not require patient’s sternum to be opened as two holes with a diameter of 0.8cm-1.2cm and small lateral incision are made between left or right ribs. Operation is then conducted through the robotic arms that can rotate a full 540 degrees while the doctor performing the operation stays at the console remotely located from the patient.
Robotic operation that uses Da Vinci robot has not been so widely applied to the cardiac surgery, which has a much higher risk. It has been mostly conducted to patients with Mitral Regurgitation or Atrial Septal Defect and scarcely been used for the case of coronary artery bypass surgery.
Compared to open heart surgery, minimally invasive surgery with robot leaves small incision with less bleeding and the level of pain and the risk of infection patients suffer after the surgery are consequently much lower. As patients do not have to open their sternum, they are left with small wound and recover much faster, which makes their days at hospital relatively shorter. They are also able to get back to their normal life much faster.
Mr. Kim (anonymous, male, 53-year-old), who went through the robotic surgery on 26 November, was able to leave the hospital only three days after the surgery. His recovery was two times faster compared to patients with open heart surgery who needed to be hospitalized for at least five to seven days after the surgery.
Even though large-scale hospitals in Korea have recently started to perform robotic heart surgery, the proportion of robotic heart surgery in Korea is still very low compared to that of the US and Europe.
Professor Ho Young Hwang said, “A number of large-scale hospitals in Korea are performing robotic surgery. However, Seoul National University Hospital uses robotic surgery in heart operation only in very limited cases compared to other surgeries. As two large-scale hospitals in Korea have already adopted the robotic bypass surgery, we will also actively spread the use of robotic heart surgery at SNUH based on our success with this minimally invasive coronary artery bypass surgery using Da Vinci Robot.”