On February 26th, the domestically produced Toumai® four-arm laparoscopic surgical robot (referred to as the Toumai®) successfully assisted in performing a radical prostatectomy overseas. According to the hospital, Toumai® is the first surgical robot introduced in its country, and this surgery marks the first robot-assisted clinical surgery in the country's history of minimally invasive surgery, leading the country's surgical practices into a more minimally invasive and precise era of "robotic minimally invasive surgery." The hospital also stated that with the introduction of Toumai®, they are able to provide more efficient and intelligent surgical solutions, enhancing the hospital's level of intelligent surgical treatment and providing patients with more precise, fine, and safe surgical treatments, thus increasing patient satisfaction.
Public information indicates that up to now, the Toumai® is the first and only domestically produced laparoscopic surgical robot to achieve commercial installation overseas. Following the MicroPort® MedBot™'s Honghu Orthopedic Surgical Robot and the R-ONE™ Vascular Interventional Surgical Robot, this is another domestically produced surgical robot conducting human clinical surgeries overseas. This surgery also marks the first international human clinical surgery conducted by a domestically produced laparoscopic surgical robot. Achieving a breakthrough from 0 to 1 signifies a significant milestone for domestically produced laparoscopic surgical robots in China, as it boldly ventures into the international market, successfully commercializes, and enters clinical applications. This milestone holds great significance for the development and globalization of domestically produced surgical robots, assisting more overseas medical experts, scholars, and patients in understanding and delving into China's innovative medical technology applications and current developments in the field of minimally invasive surgery, thereby establishing broader international collaborations and promoting the mutual progress and development of global minimally invasive and trauma surgery.
The rapid implementation of high-difficulty surgeries overseas fully demonstrates the innovative technological strength of the Toumai® and its training service system that fully meets the requirements of overseas clinical applications. During the process, experts from hospitals who had never undergone surgical robot training received specialized training and guidance from MicroPort® MedBot™—starting from understanding the theoretical foundations of equipment and instruments, mastering surgical skills through practical exercises, improving operational accuracy, familiarizing themselves with over 10 types of instruments, and mastering routine operations such as clamping, dissecting, cutting, electrocoagulation, and suturing to comprehensively enhance their surgical skills. Additionally, based on the participants' expertise, the MicroPort® MedBot™ conducted various complex and delicate surgical operations through multi-mode animal experiments, including tissue cutting and suturing, arterial exposure and dissection, extensive lymphatic clearance, ureteral anastomosis, and other intricate procedures, laying a solid foundation for the successful implementation of human clinical surgeries.
The radical prostatectomy performed in this instance is one of the most complex surgeries in urological surgery. Due to the prostate's unique location deep in the pelvic cavity between the bladder and the posterior urethra with rich blood supply, the key and challenging aspects of the surgery involve exposing the surgical site, completely removing the tumor, preserving the neurovascular bundle (NVB), sectioning the bladder neck, and reconstructing the urethra while maintaining the patient's continence and avoiding rectal injury.
On the day of the surgery, with the immersive 3D high-definition view provided by the Toumai®, the lead surgeon utilized the highly flexible wristed instruments controlled by the high-degree-of-freedom mechanical arms to precisely dissect and free the prostate, completely preserve the neurovascular bundle (NVB), section the bladder neck, and reconstruct the urethra. The surgical procedure proceeded smoothly like flowing water, achieving a good urinary control surgical outcome. The patient's vital signs remained stable throughout the surgery, with minimal intraoperative bleeding.
"The robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy truly lives up to being the 'gold standard' for radical prostatectomies, completely overcoming the limitations of laparoscopy and providing even greater precision," the lead surgeon stated postoperatively. "In this surgery, the Toumai® fully demonstrated its advantages in precise identification, precise dissection, and meticulous excision, conducting a series of intricate operations within the confined surgical space with precision to complete the surgery. We were able to accurately identify nerves, blood vessels, and tissue layers, precisely remove the tumor while better separating the urethra. This allows for faster postoperative recovery for patients, significantly reducing hospital stay, and notably decreasing postoperative complications such as urinary incontinence and positive surgical margins. This directly proves that our decision to introduce the Toumai® was very correct, and in the future, we look forward to it playing a bigger role, ensuring patient satisfaction with minimally invasive treatments."
Mr. Yu Liu, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of the MicroPort® MedBot™, stated that the Toumai®'s successful completion of the first clinical surgery overseas, achieving good results and receiving high praise from the hospital's lead surgical experts, signifies the Toumai®'s pioneering success in opening up commercialization in overseas markets. Throughout this process, Toumai® relied not on low-cost competition but on innovative technology, product quality, customer service, and high cost-effectiveness solutions to win customer trust. In the future, the group will further deepen its presence in the global market, seize the opportunity for transformation and upgrading of China's high-end medical equipment manufacturing industry, actively integrate resources and deploy global capabilities from a global perspective, advance international market recognition and trust in the MicroPort® MedBot™ brand and products, allowing intelligent manufacturing in China and technology to benefit patients worldwide and achieve the goal of " Make Surgery Easier, Safer and Less Invasive."
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