Saudi hospital perfirms historic cardiac transplant feat
Joy as Saudi Hospital Completes World’s First Fully Robotic Heart Transplant
A cardiac team at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSHRC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has completed a historic world’s first fully robotic heart transplant.
The feat, which took about two and a half hours, was carried out on a 16-year-old patient with end-stage cardiac failure.
Indeed, the patient was chosen on request that the heart team would not open his chest.
The team practised the procedure almost seven times over three days before conducting it on the patient.
It is believed that such innovation may shift heart transplant surgery away from traditional chest-opening procedures, which have lengthy recovery times of weeks or months.
The procedure begins with meticulous theoretical planning to assure accuracy and reduce potential dangers.
The researchers designed a surgical method for accessing the heart and performing the transplant without opening the patient’s chest.
To ensure the success of this strategy, the team practised the process nearly seven times over three days before operating.
The successful operation has been hailed as a significant development in heart transplant surgery, moving away from typical chest-opening operations that need extended recuperation periods, which can last months.
Dr. Dieter Broering, executive director of the Organ Transplant Centre at KFSHRC, told Al Arabiya English at the time that the speciality hospital had spent four decades working to establish the Kingdom as a global leader in organ transplantation.
He believes robotic organs will usher in a new era of healthcare innovation, with accuracy and low invasiveness redefining what is possible in organ transplantation.
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