Doctors in Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon performed a rare and complex surgery which was robotic-aided to treat the damaged ureter of a Zambian accident victim.

Revealing this, the hospital said that the team conducted the rare redo surgery of the ureter via Da Vinci robotic-assisted technology. This was done to treat the 37-year-old patient’s damaged urethra as he had suffered a major pelvic fracture and serious damage to his vital organs in a road accident.

The operation was for a duration of three hours and following it the patient was discharged after four days.

At the time when the patient was admitted in Fortis he was on a catheter inserted into the bladder through the abdomen and he was incapable of passing urine on his own. This was further complicated as there was narrowing of the urethra; urine leakage and erectile dysfunction.

In Zambia he underwent a procedure twice but that didn’t help.

Dr. (Prof.) Anil Mandhani, Executive Director, Urology and Kidney Transplant at  Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon, said that the patient’s pelvis had been fractured in a road accident and he was diagnosed with pelvic fracture urethral distraction defect. This is caused due to disruption near the prostate that makes the two ends of the urethral tube move away from each other.

The joining of the disrupted ends is a challenging task and hence doctors decided to use a procedure whereby a thin camera along with a robot-assisted redo that allowed them to look inside the bladder. This made the operation easier allowing the doctors to reach the areas where it is difficult to reach. The robot-aided provides 10 times magnification of the surgery site.

Interestingly, this is the first time a robot-aided surgery is being done in such a case.