Doctors at Israel’s Beilinson Medical Center successfully performed the country’s first robotic lung transplant surgery. The innovative surgical procedure was carried out using the da Vinci robotic system and is one of approximately 20 similar operations performed worldwide to date.
Minimally Invasive Approach and Reduced Risks
Traditional lung transplantation typically lasts between 8 and 10 hours and requires fully opening the chest and spreading the ribs. This process is characterized by severe postoperative pain, which makes deep breathing and coughing up secretions difficult for the patient, significantly increasing the risk of lung infections and complications.
With the new robotic method, the surgery was performed through several tiny incisions. With the help of the robotic system, the surgeons connected the transplanted lung to the patient’s blood vessels and airways with minimal trauma. As a result, the patient’s rehabilitation proceeded faster than expected — the pain was so mild that he required almost no strong painkillers other than paracetamol, which also reduced the length of his hospital stay.
Preparation and Emergency Safety Protocol
It is worth noting that about a month before this surgery, surgeons at the Beilinson Center performed a lung transplant using a minimally invasive approach without a robot (using only two small incisions), which gave the team valuable practical experience.
Since the surgeons’ direct access to the patient was limited while operating the robotic instruments inside the chest cavity, the multidisciplinary team underwent special simulation training in advance to manage potential complications. In addition, to ensure maximum safety, the patient was placed on heart-lung machine support before the surgery began.
Medical Center Experience and Outlook
Beilinson Medical Center has extensive experience in transplantology, with more than 1,000 lung transplant surgeries performed at its facility.
According to Dr. Yuri Peischowicz, head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery, this achievement is a turning point, and the center’s goal is to make robotic lung transplantation without opening the chest the gold standard of treatment within the next 5 years. For context, the world’s first robotic lung transplant was performed in Spain in 2023.
