Harbin, China --- Professor Lishan Xu of Department of Oncology and Hepatobiliary Surgery and his team of the Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University completed the robot-assisted choledochoscopic cholecystectomy and choledocholithotomy on December 29, 2021 with Toumai^® Laparoscopic Surgical Robot (Toumai^®) independently developed by Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co., Ltd. (MicroPort^® MedBot^®). It is the first high-difficulty operation of its kind in China to be completed by the Chinese-developed surgical robot. During the operation, Professor Lishan Xu removed the gallbladder, cut and opened the common bile duct, removed the stones, and carefully explored the biliary tract with choledochoscope to ensure that there was no stone residue, and then, conducted the primary suture of the opening of common bile duct in one stage with the flexible mechanical arm of Toumai^®, which avoided the postoperative retention of T-tube, relieved the patients' pain and improved the prognosis. The case truly reflects the characteristics of micro-port biliary tract surgery, and creates new achievements for Toumai^® in the field of hepatobiliary surgery through the superb technical level of experts.

Compared with traditional laparotomy and laparoscopic surgery, the flexibility of Toumai^® greatly improves the precision of surgery, especially for lymph node dissection and biliary-intestinal anastomosis of malignant tumors. By expanding the surgical field of vision, the operator can achieve complete resection (R0 resection) to achieve the goal of radical cure of the tumor; meanwhile, robot-assisted surgery has the advantages of low surgical trauma, less complications and low residual rate of stones, which can obviously shorten the length of stay (LOS) in hospital, reduce the utilization of drugs, control the medical expenses and reduce the economic burden of patients. Surgical robot will stimulate the minimal-invasive technology to a new height, and surely bring more firm confidence to the treatment of human diseases.