Assam: Doctors performs Rare Robotic Splenic surgery on 13-year-old boy

Guwahati: In a rare surgery, doctors of a private hospital in Assam claimed to have successfully performed a robotic surgery to remove a large splenic cyst while preserving the spleen of a 13-year-old boy. 

This is the first such surgery in the North-eastern region, the hospital where the procedure was conducted said in a statement.

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Such a large splenic cyst is quite rare in children, it said.

Dr Subhash Khanna, a laparoscopic, bariatric and robotic surgeon, led a team that successfully removed the splenic cyst.

"As the spleen is a highly vascular organ, chances of bleeding were very high," said Khanna.

The patient was diagnosed to have cholelithiasis (gallstone disease) with splenomegaly (enlarged spleen) with a large splenic hilar cyst (15 cm x 11 cm) which was clinically palpable.

The boy and his parents were counselled by doctors as the spleen is a very important immune organ that filters the blood, fights the germ infecting the blood and removes old or damaged red blood cells.

A team of experts, led by Khanna, carried out deroofing and excision of the large splenic cyst robotically on Thursday.

Robotic surgery is a procedure that uses mechanical arms controlled by the surgeon with the help of surgical instruments and a camera, especially to avoid the need for large incisions. 'Versius', a next-generation surgical robot, was used in this case.

"At Swagat Super Speciality Surgical Institute, many such splenic tear cases have been treated with the arterial embolization in the recent past. However, this is the first instance in the entire North East region where such a large splenic cyst has been treated robotically preserving the spleen at the same time in a child," the statement said. 

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