Tygerberg Hospital has become the first public hospital in South Africa to perform robotic surgical procedures using the Da Vinci X1 robot.
The procedures were performed yesterday and today. The Western Cape Department of Health says the introduction of this advanced technology is a first for both patient care and surgical innovation in the South African state health care system.
The main diseases that the programme will focus on are colorectal, liver, prostate, kidney and bladder cancers, and women with severe endometriosis.
Patients will benefit from the multiple technological advances found in this latest da Vinci robot, namely:
- Better visualisation and magnification of tissues by the da Vinci camera (facilitating more precise surgery).
- Being able to do major surgery through multiple small incisions instead of a big skin incision, leading to less post-operative pain and a faster return to normal activities after surgery, when compared to standard “big incision” surgery.
- Fewer post-operative complications such as hernias.
- Built-in visualisation systems that allow for checking the blood supply of an organ and thus decrease the chance of major complications when compared to traditional surgery.
- Being able to see the operation in 3D, and thus have better depth perception when compared to traditional laparoscopic surgery, where the image is in 2D.
