Doctors Perform First Robotic Heart Transplant In US Without Opening a Chest 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Neuroscience News Science Magazine: Surgeons have performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S., using advanced robotic tools to avoid opening the chest. [...] Using a surgical robot, lead surgeon Dr. Kenneth Liao and his team made small, precise incisions, eliminating the need to open the chest and break the breast bone. Liao removed the diseased heart, and the new heart was implanted through preperitoneal space, avoiding chest incision.
"Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient's recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants," said Liao, professor and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and circulatory support at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center. "With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery."
In addition to less surgical trauma, the clinical benefits of robotic heart transplant surgery include avoiding excessive bleeding from cutting the bone and reducing the need for blood transfusions, which minimizes the risk of developing antibodies against the transplanted heart. Before the transplant surgery, the 45-year-old patient had been hospitalized with advanced heart failure since November 2024 and required multiple mechanical devices to support his heart function. He received a heart transplant in early March 2025 and after heart transplant surgery, he spent a month in the hospital before being discharged home, without complications.
"Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient's recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants," said Liao, professor and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and circulatory support at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center. "With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery."
In addition to less surgical trauma, the clinical benefits of robotic heart transplant surgery include avoiding excessive bleeding from cutting the bone and reducing the need for blood transfusions, which minimizes the risk of developing antibodies against the transplanted heart. Before the transplant surgery, the 45-year-old patient had been hospitalized with advanced heart failure since November 2024 and required multiple mechanical devices to support his heart function. He received a heart transplant in early March 2025 and after heart transplant surgery, he spent a month in the hospital before being discharged home, without complications.
ok (Score:1)
Now do it without stopping either of them....
Cool tech, but (Score:2)
It's impressive how much a badly conceived AI image in a medical story can really undermine the story's impact.
The actual robot is out there, photos exist. The fact they chose this route is... sad...? I hope they were just lazy and not so strung out they couldn't just get an actual photo of the team from one of their press releases...
Re:Cool tech, but (Score:5, Informative)
https://blogs.bcm.edu/2025/02/... [bcm.edu]
I had no idea how huge these things are.
https://aimis.com/assets/image... [aimis.com]
They must have some really fancy attachments to get the dexterity (such as angle of approach) they would need. I can't imagine trying to change an oil filter shoved up behind a radiator with this...
Re: (Score:3)
That's the one.
The trick is that each arm folds on itself multiple times in a resting position, as well as two extra rotation axes. It's got a ridiculous amount of reach...
I also didn't realise how big they were tbh. The control system looks like something from a japanese arcade... can't complain about it getting the job done though.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, AI slop at work. I saw the picture and stopped reading.
Re: (Score:1)
Why would you stop reading when you see a picture? This isn't a comic book. The story actually has interesting information.
Re: (Score:3)
Because if someone has resorted to LLM-generated slop for the illustration (and the organisation publishing being fine with at least that kind of slop), there is some elevated risk the text will also be slop?
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Quite obviously so I would suspect. But the person you answered to is a master at overlooking the obvious.
Re: (Score:1)
There's an elevated risk of you dying walking down the stairs. It's similar here. Writing can be done yourself, getting a photo is a copyright shitshow especially if the story its about hasn't had an image provided by a media department for use. As it stands the overwhelming majority of news has used stock photos in their articles for decades. It stands to reason that someone would use AI to generate pictures, but that has an "elevated risk" that the article is AI about as close to zero as you can get.
It se
Overly Literal Comment (Score:4, Funny)
I didn't know robots had hearts. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive, but I think it would be more amazing if it was done on a human.
Went in through the abs, not the upper chest (Score:5, Informative)
They insisted on using medical jargon which every doctor would understand, but your average Joe does not. The 'preperitoneal space' they mentioned basically means they went in lower, rather than breaking the ribs open.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a lot of words for: "you can google it"
Why should you need to? Editors exist to summarise stories in a way the target audience understands. Do you always do other people's job for them? If so can you be here at 9? I really need my house cleaned.
Re: (Score:2)
You're confusing not doing something with not having the responsibility. It is indeed the job description of an editor to do that. I take it you yourself are an editor and are too ashamed that you also are shit at your job. That's the only reason I could think of you justifying this.
Maybe go do something complicated like a liberal arts degree at university and learn what Editors do.
the preperitoneal space (Score:3, Informative)
"accessing the heart through the preperitoneal space"
This seems extremely complicated and difficult. Apparently they come in under the ribcage which seems like very limited access to the heart. The robot cuts out "the diseased heart", which surely must require hooking the arteries up to a temporary external blood pump in order to keep the patient alive?
And they pull that heart out through the incisions under the chest, stuff a new heart back up in there, and stitch it all back together.
Re: (Score:3)
It's amazing how complicated surgery can be when you try and do it minimally invasive. The complexity and difficulty is why it was only now done with robots but the benefits of doing so are actually quite significant.
For many years we've been making surgery ever more complex and difficult. The easy way is to just slice someone open to access the bits you need, but that usually results in worse health outcomes than e.g. keyhole surgery. The less trauma to the body the better... and the more complicated.
Him, what about healing the original heart (Score:2)
Did one ever come to the idea to heal a heart outside of the body?
Or did they, and it was to difficult?
Re: (Score:1)
Did one ever come to the idea to heal a heart outside of the body?
Or did they, and it was to difficult?
An interesting idea. I'd assume a mix of difficult and lack of opportunity.
Most cases that reach the point of open heart surgery are either repairing damage akin to "needing stiches" or to remove necrotized tissue.
A heart attack for instance is when there's a problem with blood flow to the heart itself resulting in necrotized (dead) tissue. This just isn't something that can heal or be healed, it's already dead.
It breaks down on its own so the body is forced to try and remove it through normal channels, w
Re: (Score:2)
I've managed to do code development / updating on a running system, in assembler. Build the fix, and whatever else you need to copy from the original faulty area to a section of code memory unused so far, along with a branch statement back to where the fix needs to hand off back to the original code. Then modify one line in the running system to branch out to the fix, and voila!
Might even be one of the ways they keep the deep space probes running - though their code has been much more thoroughly vetted th
Re:Him, what about healing the original heart (Score:5, Insightful)
This technique does have the potential for attaching a mechanical heart that can be used to reduce the strain on the patient's own heart, this can allow the heart to rest and lead to a partial recovery. In about 40% of cases the mechanical heart can later be removed and the patient's own heart can continue to function adequately.
The problem is that when a heart is damaged, scar tissue has to form, but the heart is still functioning, this causes 'remodelling' , where the shape of the heart changes due to weakness in the muscle and extra strain on the functional muscle. This is why following a heart attack, patient's are routinely given beta blockers and ARBs or ACE Inhibitors, to reduce the strain on the heart, in an attempt to reduce this remodelling while the scar tissue is formed. Where there is significant damage, a mechanical heart reduces the load far more than medication can, allowing for better healing.
Re: (Score:2)
That "outside the body" part would seem to mean two heart transplant operations, first to remove the heart and second to reinsert it. It *would* have the benefit of not needing immuno-suppresants for life, But it would mean staying hooked up to a heart-lung machine while the heart was being repaired and healing. That's probably worse than the immuno-suppresants.
Re: (Score:2)
It might be possible to decellularize the heart and then use pluripotent stem cells to rebuild it but it might also need to be exercised for a while before implantation
A main advantage would be, aside from rejection, that an artificial heart could be used for a couple months while it grows. This would save donor heart supply.
Good idea, I think.
Why do robots (Score:2)
Yes but how? Useless article... (Score:2)
No explanation of how this robot does this feat. How does the new heart inside? Does the robot cut the old heart into little pieces to pull it out?
no opening (Score:2)
No opening. Apparently, the new heart was inserted using quantum tunnelling.
Sternum (Score:2)
I can testify from personal experience that the standard method of cutting through the sternum to open the chest is the worst part of heart surgery. Takes forever to heal and you shouldn't use your arms for months to prevent it from opening up again until healed.
"Should I be awake for this?" (Score:2)
"Ah heh. Well, no, heh. But as long as you are, could you hold your rib cage open a bit?"