Dr. Sudhir Srivastava, founder and CEO of SS Improvements, performing a robotic telesurgery for atrial septal defect (ASD) closure. | Supply: SS Improvements Worldwide
World wide, folks residing in rural areas battle to entry satisfactory healthcare. Based on the Facilities for Illness Management, rural residents within the U.S. face increased dangers of demise due, partially, to restricted entry to specialised medical care and emergency companies. SS Improvements Worldwide Inc. hopes to vary that with robotic telesurgery.
The Gurugram, India-based firm has accomplished 5 robotic cardiac telesurgeries, of accelerating complexity, throughout greater than 250 km (155 mi.). These procedures are simply an early step in its objective to democratize entry to cutting-edge healthcare, Dr. Vishwa Srivastava, chief working officer of SS Improvements, advised The Robotic Report.
“Our entire concept was that know-how is nice, however it doesn’t imply something till folks have entry to it,” he mentioned. “Considered one of our mantras within the firm is that we wished to make the most of know-how to the very best of our capability, in order that extra sufferers, and extra folks internationally, will have the ability to profit from such an exquisite know-how.”
The corporate’s newest system, the SSI Mantra 3, prices only a third of Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci system, Srivastava mentioned. Launched in July 2024, SSI Mantra 3 obtained regulatory approval for distant surgical procedure and teleproctoring from the Central Medicine Normal Management Group (CDSCO), opening the door for distant surgical procedures and medical training.
The system has an open-faced ergonomic Surgeon Command Centre, a 32-in. 3D 4K monitor, and a 23-in. 2D touch-panel monitor to show all patient-related data. It additionally supplies a digital real-time picture of the robotic Affected person Aspect Arm Carts and may superimpose 3D fashions of diagnostic imaging.
SS Improvements extends from easy surgical procedures to advanced cardiac procedures
The SSi Mantra 3 contains greater than 40 several types of robotic devices that can be utilized for various specialties together with cardiac surgical procedure. | Supply: SS Improvements Worldwide
Srivastava and his father, founder and CEO Dr. Sudhir Srivastava, are each surgeons who received their coaching within the U.S. and Canada. When Sudhir Srivastava began the corporate, it was necessary to him that the corporate was on par with all regulatory and world-class methods of approaching scientific trials, irrespective of the place it carried out surgical procedures. So, the staff began small.
“We first carried out on inanimate objects, then we did an animal trial,” Srivastava mentioned. “Then we did a easy cholecystectomy, which is a elimination of the gallbladder, at like 5 km [3.1 mi.] away.”
After this, the staff labored with Dr. Sudhir Rawal, the medical director and chief of genito-uro oncology on the Rajiv Gandhi Most cancers Institute and Analysis Heart. Rawal carried out a number of instances of more and more advanced most cancers surgical procedures at a distance of 40 km (24.8 mi.). These procedures included a prostatectomy (elimination of the prostate), cystectomy (elimination of the bladder), nephrectomy (elimination of the kidneys), tumor excisions, and extra.
“We’ve gone by means of each step to regularly enhance the complexity, conserving in thoughts security and efficacy and with out inflicting any hurt to the affected person,” Srivastava mentioned.
The staff continued to extend the gap and complexity of those telesurgeries till it lastly determined to tackle cardiac surgical procedures. For instance, it carried out a robotic beating coronary heart completely endoscopic coronary artery bypass (TECAB), some of the advanced cardiac surgical procedures.
To carry out its surgical procedures, the corporate partnered with the most important telecom firm in India, Airtel, to safe devoted fiber optic strains. Srivastava mentioned though it leased 100 megabytes per second by means of the road, its bandwidth requirement for the surgical procedures was simply 25 to 30 megabytes per second.
Sooner or later, SS Improvements mentioned it hopes to maintain pushing the boundaries. It plans to carry out telesurgeries in France and Indonesia within the coming months to check its transcontinental talents.
Robotic telesurgery supplies a brand new coaching methodology
SS Improvements mentioned its system supplies better visualization than different surgical robotic methods, which usually depend on 2D imaginative and prescient. This makes surgical procedure simpler for all surgeons, whether or not they’re new or have years of expertise.
“Since day one in all our inception, now we have given 3D imaginative and prescient to the complete surgical staff. So what meaning is surgical efficiency just isn’t compromised. If I’m working in 3D, I can see all the things that I might see in an open state of affairs,” Srivastava mentioned. “However, if I’m working in 2D, which is what robotic surgical firms aside from us do, it’s like protecting one eye and anticipating myself to function.”
Robotic telesurgery doesn’t simply have the potential to deliver world-class surgeons to rural areas; it may also be used to higher practice younger surgeons, Srivastava added.
“Using teleprompter, even at distant distances, we are able to coach and practice the youthful technology of surgeons,” he mentioned. “And in the event that they get caught, then we are able to take over and get them by means of that step so that they don’t have to surrender and convert the surgical procedure to an open process or a laparoscopic process.”
“We’re not telesurgery as some rock star surgeon sitting in a single place taking the sufferers away from all different up-and-coming surgeons,” he continued. “You might need heard this quote {that a} rising tide lifts all ships. We wished to make the most of telesurgery to have the ability to raise and carry others by offering them the assist that they may want.”