An ACS Fellow in Orlando, Florida, has performed groundbreaking surgery that may have significant implications for increasing patient access to highly qualified surgeons around the world.
Earlier in June, Vipul R. Patel, MD, FACS, medical director at AdventHealth Global Robotics Institute in Celebration, Florida, performed a robotic prostatectomy on a 67-year-old patient in Angola with prostate cancer—all while he remained stationed in Florida, more than 7,000 miles away.
It was the first human clinical trial approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to test transcontinental robotic telesurgery.
Dr. Patel, who has performed thousands of robotic prostatectomies—now the standard of care for surgical treatment of prostate cancer—led the telesurgery, which relied on high-speed data transmission along 10,000 miles of direct fiber optic cables that run from Orlando to Miami to Brazil to Angola. Dr. Patel noted that there was no perceptible delay between his action on the robotic platform to the OR.
For this human trial, Dr. Patel had a surgical team in the OR in Angola to monitor for potential issues, but none arose, and the patient experienced a successful outcome.
This is the first US-based transcontinental telesurgery performed since 2001, when Jacques Marescaux, MD, FACS, a digestive and endocrine surgeon from France, performed a robotic cholecystectomy from the US on a French patient. Though the operation was also a success, the nascent telecommunications capabilities made it prohibitively difficult to reproduce.
In 2025, technology advanced sufficiently to make telesurgery increasingly available, and Dr. Patel’s successful surgery may be the next step in greatly expanding access to care for remote and rural populations around the world.
"It was a small step for a surgeon, but it was a huge leap for healthcare," Dr. Patel said.
Telesurgery at Clinical Congress 2025
A special didactic course at Clinical Congress 2025 in Chicago, Illinois, will explore telesurgical applications of robotic surgery and provide an in-depth analysis of the various risks, benefits, and challenges associated with remote surgical care.
Learn more about “Emerging Robotic Systems and Telesurgery: A New Humanitarian Frontier for Surgical Training, Education and Patient Care” and other cutting-edge sessions planned for Clinical Congress.
Register by August 18 to take advantage of early bird rates.
