First Successful Bypass Surgery Conducted Via Da Vinci Robotic Surgical System

A patient at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, Texas, is the first there to receive bypass surgery without opening the chest cavity to gain access to the heart, according to a press release issued by Trinity Mother Frances Heart Institute and published on prnewswire.com.

Luther Roden of Canton is 62 years old and is the first patient of Mother Frances Hospital to have a heart bypass surgery endoscopically with the use of the da Vinci Robotic Surgical System; the da Vinci cannot make decision and movements on it's own, the doctor still controls that, though it enables the surgery to take place without major incisions.

Roden was released from the hospital a mere day and a half after the surgery, instead of the typical stay that accompanies bypass surgery that can last several days. Pain is also decreased as is overall recovery time. Normal activity can resume after 10 to 14 days instead of six to eight weeks.

The system has been used at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, Texas, since February of 2004, but this is the first bypass surgery without major incisions. William F. Turner, Jr., M.D. is a Tyler cardiovascular surgeon with Turner Cardiovascular Associates. As of now, he is the only heart surgeon in Texas currently offering a totally endoscopic robotic bypass procedure, and he was the first in 2004 to use the da Vinci at Mother Frances. Since then, he has performed 130 such procedures utilizing robotic assistance.

Turner said, "The approach of this procedure is similar to the way in which gall bladder surgery has been done for the last several years. It is a great advancement in cardiac care," said Dr. Turner. "I have performed 130 robotic-assisted bypasses at Mother Frances, but this new technique eliminates the need to open a 2-3 inch area between the ribs to allow an area to hand-sew the bypass from outside the body. That incision is no longer needed since the harvesting of a section of the mammary vessel from the inside of the chest wall as well as the bypass are now all done internally with the assistance of the robotic system."