Dr. Sudhir Srivastava, founder and CEO of SS Improvements, performing a robotic telesurgery for atrial septal defect (ASD) closure. | Supply: SS Improvements Worldwide
All over the world, folks residing in rural areas battle to entry sufficient healthcare. In response to the Facilities for Illness Management, rural residents within the U.S. face increased dangers of dying due, partly, to restricted entry to specialised medical care and emergency companies. SS Improvements Worldwide Inc. hopes to alter 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 thought was that know-how is nice, but it surely doesn’t imply something till folks have entry to it,” he stated. “Certainly one of our mantras within the firm is that we needed to make the most of know-how to the most effective of our capacity, in order that extra sufferers, and extra folks internationally, will have the ability to profit from such a beautiful know-how.”
The corporate’s newest system, the SSI Mantra 3, prices only a third of Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci system, Srivastava stated. Launched in July 2024, SSI Mantra 3 acquired regulatory approval for distant surgical procedure and teleproctoring from the Central Medication Commonplace Management Group (CDSCO), opening the door for distant surgical procedures and medical schooling.
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 info. It additionally supplies a digital real-time picture of the robotic Affected person Aspect Arm Carts and might 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 obtained their coaching within the U.S. and Canada. When Sudhir Srivastava began the corporate, it was essential to him that the corporate was on par with all regulatory and world-class methods of approaching medical trials, regardless 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 stated. “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 circumstances 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 via each step to step by step enhance the complexity, preserving in thoughts security and efficacy and with out inflicting any hurt to the affected person,” Srivastava stated.
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), one of the advanced cardiac surgical procedures.
To carry out its surgical procedures, the corporate partnered with the biggest telecom firm in India, Airtel, to safe devoted fiber optic traces. Srivastava stated though it leased 100 megabytes per second via the road, its bandwidth requirement for the surgical procedures was simply 25 to 30 megabytes per second.
Sooner or later, SS Improvements stated 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 technique
SS Improvements stated its system supplies larger visualization than different surgical robotic techniques, which generally 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, we’ve got given 3D imaginative and prescient to all the surgical staff. So what which means is surgical efficiency is just not compromised. If I’m working in 3D, I can see every part that I may see in an open situation,” Srivastava stated. “However, if I’m working in 2D, which is what robotic surgical firms aside from us do, it’s like overlaying one eye and anticipating myself to function.”
Robotic telesurgery doesn’t simply have the potential to deliver world-class surgeons to rural areas; it can be used to raised practice younger surgeons, Srivastava added.
“Using teleprompter, even at distant distances, we are able to coach and practice the youthful technology of surgeons,” he stated. “And in the event that they get caught, then we are able to take over and get them via 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 needed to make the most of telesurgery to have the ability to elevate and carry others by offering them the help that they may want.”
