Crossing 2000KM: Remote Interventional Surgery Success at Fuwai Hospital

On July 5th, in the multimodal digital operating room at Beijing Fuwai Hospital, the structural heart disease team performed a robot-assisted transcatheter edge-to-edge repair of the mitral valve using ultrasound guidance. This procedure was conducted remotely over a distance of over 2000 kilometers, utilizing a domestically developed robotic surgical system, to successfully treat a patient from Shenzhen Fuwai Hospital.

 

The patient is a 70-year-old male who experienced a sudden heart attack last year and underwent coronary stent implantation at a local hospital. However, he has since suffered recurrent and worsening symptoms of chest tightness and shortness of breath. Echocardiography revealed severe impairment of heart function due to the heart attack, with an ejection fraction (EF) of only 34% and severe mitral valve regurgitation. Recently, he sought treatment at the Shenzhen branch of Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

 

There are two surgical options for treating mitral valve regurgitation:

 

a. Open-heart surgery for valve repair or replacement through a chest incision.

b. Transcatheter approach using a valve clip inserted through a catheter into the heart for repair.

 

Given the patient's underlying conditions including heart attack and hypertension, his surgical risk score (STS score) is high at 9.49, indicating a very high risk for open-heart surgery. After thorough preoperative assessment and multidisciplinary discussion, and following extensive communication with the patient and his family, the Fuwai team has planned to perform a intervention transcatheter edge-to-edge repair of the mitral valve for the patient.

Beijing                                Shen Zhen

 

On the afternoon of July 5th, the Fuwai team in Beijing, 2200 kilometers away, remotely operated a robotic device using joysticks and buttons to manipulate a mitral valve repair tool. Through a puncture site at the patient's groin, located in Shenzhen, they implanted a valve clip. This procedure transformed the mitral valve from having a large single orifice to a small double orifice during systole, effectively reducing mitral valve regurgitation. The surgery was completed in just over 20 minutes, successfully repairing the patient's mitral valve. Postoperative cardiac ultrasound revealed that the severe regurgitation had been reduced to trace regurgitation. The procedure was deemed a complete success.

Regurgitation Preoperatively

 

Regurgitation Postoperatively