SS Improvements says robotic telesurgery can change surgeon coaching and entry to care

Dr. Sudhir Srivastava, founder and CEO of SS Improvements, performing a robotic telesurgery for atrial septal defect (ASD) closure. | Supply: SS Improvements Worldwide

Around the globe, folks dwelling in rural areas wrestle to entry sufficient healthcare. In keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management, rural residents within the U.S. face larger dangers of loss of life due, partially, to restricted entry to specialised medical care and emergency providers. 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 expertise is nice, nevertheless it doesn’t imply something till folks have entry to it,” he stated. “One among our mantras within the firm is that we needed to make the most of expertise to the perfect of our means, in order that extra sufferers, and extra folks internationally, will have the ability to profit from such a beautiful expertise.” 

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 Medicine Customary 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 may superimpose 3D fashions of diagnostic imaging.

SS Improvements extends from easy surgical procedures to complicated cardiac procedures

The SSi Mantra 3 consists of 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 acquired 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 scientific trials, regardless of the place it carried out surgical procedures. So, the workforce 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 removing of the gallbladder, at like 5 km [3.1 mi.] away.”

After this, the workforce 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 instances of more and more complicated most cancers surgical procedures at a distance of 40 km (24.8 mi.). These procedures included a prostatectomy (removing of the prostate), cystectomy (removing of the bladder), nephrectomy (removing of the kidneys), tumor excisions, and extra. 

“We’ve gone via each step to progressively improve the complexity, conserving in thoughts security and efficacy and with out inflicting any hurt to the affected person,” Srivastava stated.

The workforce continued to extend the space 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 vital complicated cardiac surgical procedures. 

To carry out its surgical procedures, the corporate partnered with the most important 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 skills. 

Robotic telesurgery supplies a brand new coaching methodology

SS Improvements stated its system supplies larger visualization than different surgical robotic methods, 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 considered one of our inception, we now have given 3D imaginative and prescient to all the surgical workforce. So what meaning is surgical efficiency isn’t compromised. If I’m working in 3D, I can see all the pieces 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 convey world-class surgeons to rural areas; it may also be used to raised prepare younger surgeons, Srivastava added.

“Using teleprompter, even at distant distances, we are able to coach and prepare 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 taking a look at 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 may need heard this quote {that a} rising tide lifts all ships. We needed to make the most of telesurgery to have the ability to raise and carry others by offering them the assist that they may want.”